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The Arthur and Elizabeth

SCHLESINGER LIBRARY

on the History of Women
in America

RADCLIFFE COLLEGE

Gift of
Eleanor Flexner

HUGH REES LTD
^'b^f. REGtNT ST.

<iYKIA: The Desert 6? the Sown

MftnfHfiUr (tuardian, — "The possessor of
M»44 V**A\% vdliifim \% to be envied.. Her
\nfurtif\tu\y^t^ of hrf fiitt)jrct is at oncc thorough
/«n/| «vni)>ith^lti . ami no better book of its
kir»/1 ht«» U^^tx wfltti^n for many a long day."

Mfrfninti f'oif. " Of the book as a whole, one
r.ifi only ^ay ttiiit It IN |H*cuUarly rich in its
^yfrT^<»<)i/fll of Umi viiiibU) and moral features
rrf ^vt)fi nut\ ill i\w comment of an original

oymt^rvM."

A'/'/-/ fnfor " All rttchunting example of travel

ftfiilv f thf^rft/'h. " Tho homely life of those
fAf^ly vi<9il#^^l In wfll wt out in these pages,
nrt/l n^ w^ f^ll<l, th« vrry servants of Miss
UfU ( h/iM^fiK^^ 'lur prrnoiuil interest, and vary-
ifidj ^^ep^fJ^ll(^» nrrni the vicissitudes of a

gERTRUDE LOtVTHIAN 'BELL

SYRIA

THE DESERT
THE SOWN

IVITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS
AND A MAP

NEW EDITION

LONDON
WILLIAM HEINEMANN LTD

956.9

First printed, January 1907

Second Impression, March 1907

New and Cheaper Edition, October 1908

Second Impression, February 191 9

Third Impression, June 1928

{.'• - y~

To A. C. L.

WHO KNOWS THE HEART
OF THE EAST

X PREFACE

traditions unmodified as yet by any important change in the
manner of life to which they apply and out of which they
arose. These things apart, he is as we are ; human nature
does not undergo a complete change east of Suez, nor is it
impossible to be on terms of friendship and sympathy with
the dwellers in those regions. In some respects it is even
easier than in Europe. You will find in the East habits of
intercourse less fettered by artificial chains, and a wider
tolerance bom of greater diversity. Society is divided by
caste and sect and tribe into an infinite number of groups,
each one of which is following a law of its own, and however
fantastic, to our thinking, that law may be, to the Oriental
it is an ample and a. satisfactory explanation of all peculiari-
ties. A man may go about in public veiled up to the eyes,
or clad if he please only in a girdle : he will excite no re-
mark. Why should he ? Like every one else he is merely
obe5ring his own law. So too the European may pass up and
down the wildest places, encountering little curiosity and of
criticism even less. The news he brings will be heard with
interest, his opinions will be listened to with attention, but
he will not be thought odd or mad, nor even mistaken,
because his practices and the ways of his thought are at
variance with those of the people among whom he finds him-
self. " 'Adat-hu : " it is his custom. And for this reason he
will be the wiser if he does not seek to ingratiate himself with
Orientals by trying to ape their habits, unless he is so skilful
that he can pass as one of themselves. Let him treat the
law of others respectfully, but he himself will meet with a
far greater respect if he adheres strictly to his own. For a
woman this rule is of the first importance, since a woman
can never disguise herself effectually. That she should be
known to come of a great and honoured stock, whose
customs are inviolable, is her best claim to consideration.

None of the country through which I went is ground virgin
to the traveller, though parts of it have been visited but
seldom, and described only in works that are costly and often
difficult to obtain. Of such places I have given a brief
account, and as many photographs as seemed to be of value. I
have also noted in the northern cities of Syria those vestiges

PREFACE xi

of antiquity that catch the eye of a casual observer. There
is still much exploration to be done in Syria and on the edge
of the desert, and there are many difficult problems yet to
be solved. The work has been well begun by de Vogii6,
Wetzstein/Briinnow, Sachau, Dussaud, Puchstein and his
colleagues, the members of the Princeton Expedition and
others. To their books I refer those who would learn how
immeasurably rich is the land in architectural monuments
and in the epigraphic records of a far-reaching history.

My journey did not end at Alexandretta as this account
ends. In Asia Minor I was, however, concerned mainly
with archaeology ; the results of what work I did there
have been published in a series of papers in the " Revue
Archeologique," where, through the kindness of the editor.
Monsieur Salomon Reinach, they have found a more suitable
place than the pages of such a book as this couid have oifered
them.

I do not know either the people or the language of
Asia Minor well enough to come into anything like a close
touch with the country, but I am prepared, even on a
meagre acquaintance, to lay tokens of esteem at the feet of
the Turkish peasant. He is gifted with many virtues, with
the virtue of hospitality beyond all others.

I have been at some pains to relate the actual political
conditions of unimportant persons. They do not appear
so unimportant to one who is in their midst, and for my part
I have always been grateful to those who have provided me
with a clue to their relations with one another. But I am
not concerned to justify or condemn the government of the
Turk. I have lived long enough in Syria to realise that his
rule is far from being the ideal of administration, and seen
enough of the turbulent elements which he keeps more or less
in order to know that his post is a difficult one. I do not
believe that any government would give universal satisfac-
tion ; indeed, there are few which attain that desired end
even in more united countries. Being English, I am per-
suaded that we are the people who could best have taken
Syria in hand with the prospect of a success greater than that
which might be attained by a moderately reasonable Sultan.

xii PREFACE

We have long recognised that the task will not fall to us
We have unfortunately done more than this. Throughout the
dominions of Turkey we have allowed a very great reputation
to weaken and decline ; reluctant to accept the responsibility
of official interference, we have yet permitted the irresponsible
protests, vehemently expressed, of a sentimentality that I
make bold to qualify as ignorant, and our dealings with the
Turk have thus presented an air of vacillation which he may
be pardoned for considering perfidious and for regarding
with animosity. These feelings, combined with the deep-
seated dread of a great Asiatic Empire which is also mis-
tress of Egypt and of the sea, have, I think, led the Porte
to seize the first opportunity for open resistance to British
demands, whether out of simply miscalculation of the spirit
that would be aroused, or with the hope of foreign backing,
it is immaterial to decide. The result is equally deplorable,
and if I have gauged the matter at all correctly, the root of it
lies in the disappearance of English influence at Constanti-
nople. The position of authority that we occupied has been
taken by another, yet it is and must be of far deeper importance
to us than to any other that we should be able to guide when
necessary the tortuous politics of Yildiz Kiosk. The greatest
of all Mohammedan powers cannot afford to let her relations
with the Khalif of Islam be regulated with so little con-
sistency or firmness, and if the Sultan's obstinacy in the
Tabah quarrel can prove to us how far the reins have slipped
from our hands, it will have served its turn. Seated as we
are upon the Mediterranean and having at our command,
as I believe, a considerable amount of goodwill within the
Turkish empire and the memories of an ancient friendship, it
should not be impossible to recapture the place we have lost.

But these are matters outside the scope of the present
book, and my apologia had best end where every Oriental
writer would have begun : " In the name of God, the Merciful,
the Compassionate ! "

Mount Grace Priorv.

xiv ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGS

Capitals at Mnwaggar 53» 54, 55

Milking Sheep 57

Gablan ibn Hamud ad Da'ja 59

On the Hajj Road 61

Arabs Riding Marduf 65

A Travelling Encampment of the 'Agel 67

A Desert Well 68

A Desert Watercourse 69

Camels of the Haseneh . 71

Umm ej Jemal .... • • • 73

Watering Camels 75

Striking Camp . 77

Muhammad el Atrash . . . . , 79

Desert Flora and Fauna 83

The Castle, Salkhad 85

Nasib el Atrash , 86

A Group of Druzes .87

From Salkhad Castle, looking South-East 89

Kreyeh 93

A Druze Ploughboy 95

Bosra Eski Sham 97

The Village Gateway, Habran ....... loi

A Druze Mak*ad, Habran . . . ... . , , 103

Lintel, el Khurbeh 106

The Walls of Kanawat 108

Kanawat, The Basilica 109

Kanawat, Doorway of the Basilica . • . • . -113

Kanawat, A Temple . . . 115

The Temple, Mashennef 117

KaPat el Beida . . . 1 2^, 125

Kal'at el Beida, Door of Keep . . . . . . .127

Mouldings from KaPat el Beida and from Palmyra . . .129

A Gateway, Shakka 13^

The Sheikh's House, Hayat 133

In the Palmyrene Desert 133

The Great Mosque and the Roofs of the Bazaar from the Fort . 137

A Corn Market 139

The Kubbet el Khazneh 14 ^

The Tekyah of Nakshibendi 143

Gate of the Tekyah . 145

Mushkin Kalam . , . 14^

Sweetmeat Sellers 151

Court of the Great Mosque . . . . . . . .153

Threshing-floor of Karyatein 154

ILLUSTRATIONS xv

PAGS

The Tekyah of Nakshibendi 155"

Outside Damascus Gates . . • . . . , '157

A Water-seller 158

Suk Wadi Barada 161

Ba'albek ... 165

The Great Court, Ba'albek 167

Columns of the Temple ot the Sun, Ba'albek i6g

Temple of Jupiter, Ba*albek . . , . . . . .173

Capitals in the Temple ot Jupiter, Ba'albek 177

Fountain in the Great Court, Ba'albek 179

Fragment of Entablature, Ba'albek 181

Basilica of Constantine, Ba'aiDek . 183

A Stone in the Quarry, Ba'albek .185

Ras ul 'Ain, Ba'albek 187

Cedars of Lebanon . . . . . .189

The Kamu'a Hurmul 190

An Eastern Holiday , . .191

A Street in Homs 193

Coffee by the Roadside '197

KaPat el Husn , . . . 199

Ifal'at el Husn, Interior of the Castle 203

Windows of the Banquet Hall 205

Kal'at el Husn, Walls of the Inner Enceinte ..... 207

Fellahin Arabs 209

The Temple at Husn es Suleiman . . . .215

North Gate, Husn es Suleiman 217

The City Gate, Masyad 218

Capitals at Masyad 219,220

A Na'oura, Hamah . . 221

The Kubbeh in the Mosque at Hamah 223

The Tekyah Killaniyyeh, Hamah 225

Capital in the Mosque, Hamah 229

Capitals, Hamah . . .231, 241

Kal'at es Seijar 235

Kal'at es Seijar, The Cutting through the Ridge . . . -237

A House at el Barah 24 5

Moulding at el Barah and Lintel at Khirbet Hass 247

Tomb, Serjilla 249

Sheikh Yunis 251

House at Serjilla 252

Tomb of Bi220S 253

Church and Tomb, Ruweiha 255

Kasr el Banat 257

Tomb Dana • • • • • 259

xvi ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGB

A Beehive Village 261

The Castle, Aleppo 263

A Water-carrier 269

KaPat Sim'an ^ 274, 275

„ West Door '. . 277

„ Circular Court 278, 279

„ The Apse 280

„ „ West Door 281

A Funeral Monument, Katura 282

Khirab esh Shems 283

„ „ Carving in a Tomb 285

Capital, Upper Church at Kaloteh 286

Barad, Canopy Tomb . 287

Barad, Tower to the West of the Town 289

Musa and his Family 291

Basufan, a Kurdish Girl 295

Tomb at Dana 299

The Bab el Hawa 301

The Temple Gate, B&kirha . 303

Kalb Lozeh 307

The Apse, Kalb Lozeh 309

Harim 311

Salkin 313

Travellers ' . . -315

Antioch 318,319

On the Bank of the Orontes, Antioch ...... 320

The Corn Market, Antioch 323

Roman Lamp in Rifa't Agha*s Collection 325

Head of a Sphinx, Antioch 326

Daphne ... ........ 327

The Gariz 331

The Statue in the Mulberry Garden -. 334

Lower Course of the Gariz 337

Sarcophagus in the Seraya, Antioch 33q

CHAPTER I

To those bred under an elaborate social order few such mo-
ments of exhilaration can come as that which stands at the
threshold of wild travel. The gates of the enclosed garden
are thrown open, the chain at the entrance of the sanctuary
is lowered, with a wary glance to right and left you step
forth, and, behold ! the immeasurable world. The world
of adventure and of enterprise, dark with hurrying storms,
glittering in raw sunlight, an unanswered question and an
unanswerable doubt hidden in the fold of every hill. Into it
you must go alone, separated from the troops of friends that
walk the rose Eilleys, stripped of the purple and firie linen that
impede the fighting arm, roofless, defenceless, without pos-
sessions. The voice of the wind shall be heard instead of the
persuasive voices of counsellors, the touch of the rain and the
prick of the frost shall be spurs sharper than praise or blame,
and necessity shall speak with an authority unknown to that
borrowed wisdom which men obey or discard at will. So you
leave the sheltered close, and, like the man in the fairy story,
you feel the bands break that were riveted about your heart

2 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

as you enter the path that stretches across the rounded
shoulder of the earth.

It was a stormy morning, the 5th of February. The west
wind swept up from the Mediterranean, hurried across the
plain where the Canaanites waged war with the stubborn hiil
dwellers of Judaea, and leapt the barrier of mountains to which
the kings of Assyria and of Egypt had laid vain siege. It
shouted the news of rain to Jerusalem and raced onwards

down the barren eastern slopes, cleared the deep bed of Jor-
dan with a bound, and vanished across the hills of Moab into
the desert. And all the hounds of the storm followed behind,
a yelping pack, coursing eastward and rejoicing as they went.
No one with hfe in his body could stay in on such a day,
but for me there was little question of choice. In the grey
winter dawn the mules had gone forward carrying all my
worldly goods — two tents, a canteen, and a month's provision
of such slender luxuries as the austerest traveller can ill spare,
two small mule trunks, filled mainly with photographic
materials, a few books and a goodly sheaf of maps. The
mules and the three muleteers I had brought with me from
Beyrout, and liked well enough to take on into the further
journey. The men were all from the Lebanon. A lather

" He doesn't know much about cooking, unless he has learnt
since he was with me, but he never seems to care twopence
whether he lives or whether he is killed." When I repeated
these words to Mikhail he relapsed into fits ot suppressed

4 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

laughter, and I engaged him on the spot. It was an insuffi-
cient reason, and as good as many another. He served me
well according to his lights ; but he was a touchy, fiery little
man, always ready to meet a possible offence half way, with
an imagination to the limits of which I never attained during
three months' acquaintance, and unfortunately he had learned
other things besides cooking
during the years that had
' elapsed since he and Mr, Sykes
had been shipwrecked together
on Lake Van, It was typical of
him that he never troubled to
tell me the story of that adven-
ture, though once when I
alluded to it he nodded his
head and remarked ; " We
were as near death as a beggar
to poverty, but your Excellency
knows a man can die but once,"
whereas he bombarded my ears
with tales of tourists who had
declared they could not and
would not travel in Syria un-
sustained by his culinary arts.
The 'arak bottle was his fatal
drawback ; and after trymg
all prophylactic methods, from
blandishment to the hunting-
sr. STEPHEN'S GATE, JERUSALEM crop, I parted wlth him
abruptly on the Cilician coast,
not without regrets other than a natural longing for his tough
rELgfluts and cold pancakes.

I had a great desire to ride alone down the desolate T-oad
to Jericho, as I had done before when my face was turned to-
wards the desert, but Mikhail was of opinion that it would be
inconsistent with my dignity, and I knew that even his chat-
tering companionship could not rob that road of solitude.
At nine we were m the saddle, riding soberly round the waBs
of Jerusalem, down into the valley of Gethsemane, past the

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 7

garden of the Agony and up on to the Mount of Olives. Here I
paused to recapture the impression, which no familiarity can
blunt, of the walled city on the hill, grey in a grey and stony
landscape under the heavy sky, but illumined by the hope and
the unquenchable longing of generations of pilgrims. Human
aspiration, the blind reaching out of the fettered spirit towards
a goal where all desire shall be satisfied and the soul

find peace, these things surround the city like a halo, half
glorious, half pitiful, shining with tears and blurred by many
a disillusion. The west wind turned my horse and set him
galloping over the brow of the hill and down the road that
winds through the Wilderness of Judeea.

At the foot of the first descent there is a spring, *Ain esh
Shems, the Arabs call it, the Fountain of the Sun, but the
Christian pilgrims have named it the Apostles' Well. In
the winter you will seldom pass there without seeing some
Russian peasants resting on their laborious way up from
Jordan. Ten thousand of them pour yearly into the Holy
Land, old men and women, for the most part, who have pinched
and saved all their life long to lay together the ^30 or so which
will carry them to Jerusalem, From the furthest ends of the

8 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

Russian empire they come on foot to the Black Sea, where
they take ship as deck passengers on board a dirty Uttle
Russian boat. I have travelled with 300 of them from
Smyrna to Jaffa, myself the only passenger lodged in a cabin.
It was mid-winter, stormy and cold for those who sleep on
deck, even if they be clothed in sheepskin coats and wadded
top-boots. My shipmates had brought their own provisions
with them for economy's sake — a hunch of bread, a few olives,
a raw onion, of such was their daily meal. Morning and
evening they gathered in prayer before an icon hanging on
the cook's galley, and the sound of their Utanies went to
Heaven mingled with the throb of the screw and the splash
of the spray. The pilgrims reach Jerusalem before Christmas
and stay till after Easter that they may Ught their tapers
at the sacred fire that breaks out from the Sepulchre on the
morning of the Resurrection. They wander on foot through
all the holy places, lodging in big hostels built for them by
the Russian Government. Many die from exposure and
fatigue and the unaccustomed climate ; but to die in Palestine
is.the best of favours that the Divine hand can bestow, for
their bones rest softly in the Promised Land and their souls
fly straight to Paradise. You will meet these most un-
sophisticated travellers on every high road, trudging patiently
under the hot sun or through the winter rains, clothed always
in the furs of their own country, and bearing in their hands a
staff cut from the reed beds of Jordan. They add a sharp
note of pathos to a landscape that touches so many of the
themes of mournful poetry. I heard in Jerusalem a story
which is a better illustration of their temper than pages of
description. It was of a man who had been a housebreaker
and had been caught in the act and sent to Siberia, where he
did many years of penal servitude. But when his time was
up he came home to his old mother with a changed heart, and
they two set out together for the Holy Land that he might
make expiation for his sins. Now at the season when the
pilgrims are in Jerusalem, the riff-raff of Syria congregates
there to cheat their simplicity and pester them for alms, and
one of these vagabonds came and begged of the Russian
penitent at a time when he had nothing to give. The Syrian,

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 9

enraged at his refusal, struck the other to the earth and in-
jured him so severely that he was in hospital for three months.

When he recovered his consul came to him and said, " We
have got the man who nearly killed you ; before you leave
you must give evidence against him." But the pilgrim
answered, " No, let him go. I too am a criminal."

10 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

•

Beyond the fountain the road was empty, and though I
knew it well I was struck again by the incredible desolation
of it. No I'fc, no flowers, the bare stalks of last year's thistles,
the bare hills and the stony road. And yet the Wilderness of
Judaea has been nurse to the fiery spirit of man. Out of it
strode grim prophets, menacing with doom a world of which
they had neither part nor understanding ; the valleys are
full of the caves that held them, nay, some are peopled to
this day by a race of starved and gaunt ascetics, clinging
to a tradition of piety that common sense has found it hard to
discredit. Before noon we reached the khan half way to
Jericho, the place where legend has it that the Good Samaritan
met the man fallen by the roadside, and I went in to lunch
beyond reach of the boisterous wind. Three Germans of the
commercial traveller class were writing on picture-postcards
in the room of the inn, and bargaining with the khanji for
imitation Bedouin knives. I sat and listened to their vulgar
futile talk — it was the last I was to hear of European tongues
for several weeks, but I found no cause to regret the civilisation
I was leaving. The road dips east of the khan, and crosses a
dry water-course which has been the scene of many tragedies.
Under the banks the Bedouin used to lie in wait to rob and
murder the pilgrims as they passed. Fifteen years ago the
Jericho road was as lawless a track as is the country now
that lies beyond Jordan : security has travelled a few miles
eastward during the past decade. At length we came to the
top of the last hill and saw the Jordan valley and the Dead Sea,
backed by the misty steeps of Moab, the frontier of the desert.
Jericho lay at our feet, an unromantic village of ramshackle
hotels and huts wherein live the only Arabs the tourist ever
comes to know, a base-bom stock, half bred with negro slaves.
I left my horse with the muleteers whom we had caught up
on the slope — '' Please God you prosper ! " " Praise be to
God ! If your Excellency is well we are content " — and
ran down the hill into the village. But Jericho was not
enough for that first splendid day of the road. I desired
eagerly to leave the tourists behind, and the hotels and the
picture-postcards. Two hours more and we should reach
Jordan bank, and at the head of the wooden bridge that leads

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN ii

from Occident to Orient we might camp in a sheltered place
under mud hillocks and am:ng thickets of reed and tamarisk.
A halt to buy com for the horses and the mules and we were
off again across the narrow belt of cultivated land that lies
round Jericho, and out on to the Ghor, the Jordan valley.

The Jericho road is bare enough, but the valley of Jordan
has an aspect of inhumanity ^hat is almost evil. If the pro-
phets of the Old Testament had fulminated their anathemas

f KURUNTUL t

against it as they did against Babylon or Tyre, no better
proof of their prescience would exist ; but they were silent,
and the imagination must travel back to flaming visions of
Gomorrah and of Sodom, dim legends of iniquity that haunted
our own childhood as they haunted the childhood of the
Semitic races. A heavy stifling atmosphere weighed upon
this lowest level of the earth's surface ; the wind was racing
across the hill tops above us in the regions where men
breathed the natural air, but the valley was stagnant and
lifeless like a deep sea bottom. We brushed through low
thickets of prickly sidr trees, the Spina Christi of which the
branches are said to. have been twisted into the Crown of
Thorns. They are of two kinds these sidr bushes, the Arabs
call them zaknm and dom. From the zakum they extract a
medicinal oil, the dora bears a small fruit like a crab apple that

12 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

ripens to a reddish brown not uninviting in appearance. It
is a very Dead Sea Fruit, pleasant to look upon and leaving
on the lips a taste of sandy bitterness. The sidrs dwindled
and vanished, and before us lay a sheet of hard mud on which
no green thing grows. It is of a yellow colour, blotched with a
venomous grey-white salt : almost unconsciously the eye
appreciates its enmity to life. As we rode here a swirl of
heavy rain swooped down upon us from the upper world.
The muleteers looked grave, and even Mikhail's face began
to lengthen, for in front of us were the Slime Pits of Genesis,
and no horse or mule can pass over them except they be dry.
-— , The rain lasted a
very few minutes,
but it was enough.
The hard mud of the
plain had assumed the
consistency of butter,
the horses' feet were
shod in it up to the
fetlocks, and my dog
Kurt whined as he
dragged his paws out
of the yellow glue.
So we came to the
Slime Pits, the strangest feature of all that uncanny land. A
quarter of a mile to the west of Jordan — the belt is much
narrower to the east of the stream — the smooth plain re-
solves itself suddenly into a series of steep mud banks
intersected by narrow gullies. The banks are not high,
thirty or forty feet at the most, out the crests of them are
so sharp and the sides so precipitous that the traveller must
find his way across and round them with the utmost care.
The shower had made these slopes as slippery as glass, even
on foot it was almost impossible to keep upright. My horse
fell as I was leading him ; fortunately it was on a little ridge
between mound and mound, and by the most astonishing gym-
nastics he managed to recover himself. I breathed a ^ort
thanksgiving when I saw my caravan emerge from the Slime
Pits : we might, if the rain had lasted, have been imprisoned

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 13

there for several hours, since if a horseman falls to the bottom
of one of the sticky hollows he jnust wait there till it dries.

Along the river bank there was life. The ground was
carpeted with young grass and yellow daisies, the rusty
liveries of the tamarisk bushes showed some faint signs of
Spring. I cantered on to the great bridge with its trellised

sides and roof of beams — the most inspiring piece of archi-
lecture in the world, since it is the Gate of the Desert. There
was the open place as I remembered it, covered with short
turf, sheltered by the high mud banks, and. Heaven be praised !
empty. We had had cause for anxiety on this head. Tlie
Turkish Government was at that time sending all the troops
that could be levied to quell the insurrection in Yemen. The
regiments of southern Syria were marched down to the bridge,
and so on to 'Amman, where they were entrained and sent
ilong the Mecca railway to what was then the terminus, Ma'an

14 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

near Petra. From Ma'an they had a horrible march across
a sandy waste to the head of the Gulf of 'Akabah. Many
hundreds of men and many thousands of camels perished before
they reached the gulf, for the wells upon that road are three only
(so said the Arabs), and one lies about two miles off the track,
undiscoverable to those who are not familiar with the country.
We pitched tents, picketed the horses, and lighted a huge
bonfire of tamarisk and willow. The night was grey and
still ; there was rain on the hills, but none with us — a few
inches represents the annual fall in the valley of Jordan.
We were not quite alone. The Turkish Government levies
a small toll on all who pass backwards and forwards across
the bridge, and keeps an agent there for that purpose. He
lives in a wattle hut by the gate of the bridge, and one or two
ragged Arabs of the Ghor share his solitude. Among these
was a grey-haired negro, who gathered wood for our fire, and
on the strength of his services spent the night with us. He
was a cheery soul, was Mabuk. He danced with pleasure,
round the camp fire, untroubled by the consideration that he
was one of the most preposterously misshapen of human
beings. He told us tales of the soldiery, how they came down
in rags, their boots dropping from their feet though it was but
the first day's march, half starved too, poor wretches. A
Tabur (900 men) had passed through that morning, another
was expected to-morrow — we had just missed them. " Masha-
'llah ! " said Mikhail, " your Excellency is fortunate. First
you escape from the mud hills and then from the Redifs."
" Praise be to God ! " murmured Mabuk, and from that day
my star was recognised as a lucky one. From Mabuk we
heard the first gossip of the desert. His talk was for ever
of Ibn er Rashid, the young chief of the Shammar, whose
powerful uncle Muhammad left him so uneasy a legacy of
dominion in central Arabia. For two years I had heard no
news of Nejd — what of Ibn Sa'oud, the ruler of Riad and Ibn
er Rashid's rival ? How went the war between them ? Ma-
buk had heard many rumours ; men did say that Ibn er Ras-
hid was in great straits, perhaps the Redifs were bound for
Nejd and not for Yemen, who knew? and had we heai^d that
a sheikh of the Sukhur had been murdered by the 'Ajarmeh,

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 15

and as soon as the tribe came back from the eastern pas-
turages. . . . So the tale ran on through the familiar stages of

blood feud and camel lifting, the gossip of the desert — I could
have wept for joy at listening to it again. There was a Babe'
of Arabic tongues round my camp fire that evening, for Mik-
hail spoke the vulgar cockney of Jerusalem, a language bereft

i6 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

of dignity, and Habib a dialect of the Lebanon at immense
speed, and Muhammad had the Beyrouti drawl with its slow
expressionless swing, while from the negro's lips fell something
approaching to the virile and splendid speech of the Bedouin.
The men themselves were struck by the variations of accent,
and once they turned to me and asked which was right. I
could only reply, ** God knows ! for He is omniscient," and
the answer received a laughing acceptance, though I confess I
proffered it with some misgiving.

The dawn broke windless and grey. An hour, and a half
from the moment I was awakened till the mules were ready
to start was the appointed rule, but sometimes we were off
ten minutes earlier, and sometimes, alas ! later. I spent the
time in conversing with the guardian of the bridge, a native
of Jerusalem. To my sympathetic ears did he confide his
sorrows, the mean tricks that the Ottoman government was
accustomed to play on him, and the hideous burden of exis-
tence during the summer heats. And then the remunera-
tion ! a mere nothing ! His gain^ were hrger, however, than
he thought fit to name, for I subsequently discovered that he
had charged me three piastres instead of two for each of iny
seven stnimals. It is easy to be on excellent terms with Orien-
tals, and if their friendship has a price it is usually a small one.
We crossed the Rubicon at three piastres a head and took
the northern road which leads to Salt. The middle road goes
to Heshban, where lives the great Sheikh of all the Arabs of the
Belka, Sultan ibn 'AH id Diab ul 'Adwan, a proper rogue, and
the southern to Madeba in Moab. The eastern side of the
Ghor is much more fertile than the western. Enough water
flows from the beautiful hills of Ajlun to turn the plain into a
garden, but the supply is not stored, and the Arabs of the
'Adwan tribes content themselves with the sowing of a Uttle
com. The time of flowers was not yet. At the end of March
the eastern Ghor is a carpet of varied and lovely bloom, which
lasts but a month in the fierce heat of the valley, indeed a month
sees the plants through bud and bloom and ripened seed. A
ragged Arab showed us the path. He had gone down to join
the Redifs, having been bought as a substitute at the price of
fifty napoleons by a well-to-do inhabitant of Salt. When he

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 17

reached the bridge he found he was too late, his regiment
having passed through two days before. He was sorry, he
would have liked to march forth to the war {moreover,
I imagine the fifty liras would have to be refunded), but his
daughter would te glad, for she had wept to see him go. He
stopped to extricate one of his leather slippers from the mud.

JBRUSALEM

*' Next year," quoth he, catching me up again, " please
God I shall go to America."

I stared in amazement at the half-naked figure, the shoes
dropping from the bare feet, the torn cloak slipping from the
shoulders, the desert head-dress of kerchief and camel's hair
rope.

" Can you speak any English ? " I asked,

" No," he replied calmly, " but I shall have saved the price
of the journey, and, by God ! here there is no advancement."

I inquired what he would do when he reached the States.

" Buy and sell," he replied ; " and when I have saved 200
1 ras I shall return."

The same story can be heard all over Syria. Hundreds go

i8 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

out every year, finding wherever they land some of their com-
patriots to give them a helping hand. They hawk the streets
with cheap wares, sleep under bridges, live on fare that no
freebom citizen would look at, and when they have saved
200 liras, more or less, they return, rich men in the
estimation of their village. East ot Jordan the exodus
is not so great, yet once in the mountains of the Iilauran I
stopped to ask ray way of
a Druze, and he answered
me in the purest Yankee.
I drew rein while he told
me his tale, and at the
e::d of it I asked him if
he were going back. He
looked round at the stone
hovels of the village, knee
deep in mud and melting
s ■-ow : " You bet ! " he
replied, and as I turned
away he threw a cheer-
ful " So long ! " after
me.

When we had ridden
JEWS OF BOKHARA ^^^ hoMts wc eutcred the

hills by a winding valley which my friend called W5d
el Hassamyyeh, after the tribe of that name. It was
full of anemones and white broom (rattam the Arabs call
it), cyclamen, starch hyacinths, and wild almond trees.
For plants without a use, however lovely they may be,
there is no name in .'Vrabic ; they are ail hcshish, grass ;
whereas the smallest vegetable that can be of service is
known and distinguished in their speech. The path— it
was a mere bridle track — rose gradually. Just before we
entered the mist that covered the top of the hill we saw
the Dead Sea below us to tl e south, lying under the grey
sky like a great sheet of clouded glas?. We rr-ached Salt at
four o'clock in real mountain weatlier, a wet and driving
mist. Moreover, the ground near the \illage was a swamp,
owing to the rain that, pissing over us the night before.

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 19

had fallen here. I hesitated to camp unless I could find no
drier lodging. The first thing was to seek out the house of
Habib Effendi Fans, whom I had come to Salt to see, though I
did not know him. My claim upon him (for I relied entirely
upon his help for the prosecution of my journey) was in this
wise : he was married to the daughter of a native preacher
in Haifa, a worthy old man and a close friend of mine. Urfa
on the Euphrates was the Stammplatz of the family, but Abu
Namrud had lived long at Salt and he knew the desert. The
greater part of the hours during which he was supposed to
teach me grammar were spent in listening to tales of the Arabs
and of his son, Namrud, who worked with Habib Paris, and
whose name was known to every Arab of the Belka.

** If ever you wish to enter there," said Abu Namrud, " go
to Namrud." And to Namrud accordingly I had come.

A very short inquiry revealed the dwelling of Habib Paris.
I was received warmly, Habib was out, Namrud away (was
my luck forsaking me ?),but would I not come in and rest ?
The house was small and the children many : while I debated
whether the soaked ground outside would not prove a better
bed, there appeared a magnificent old man in full Arab dress,
who took my horse by the bridle, declared that he and no
other should lodge me, and so led me away. I left my horse
at the khan, climbed a long and muddy stair, and entered a
stone paved courtyard. Yusef Effendi hurried forward and
threw open the door of his guest-chamber. The floor and the
divan were covered with thick carpets, the windows glazed
(though many of the panes were broken), a European cheffonier
stood against the wall : this was more than good enough. In
a moment I was established, drinking Yusef's coffee, and
eating my own cake.

Yusef Effendi Sukkar (upon him be peace !) is a Christian
and one of the richest of the inhabitants of Salt. He is a
laconic man, but as a host he has not his equal. He preparea
me an excellent supper, and when I had eaten, the remains
were set before Mikhail. Having satisfied my physical needs
he could not or would not do anything to allay my mental
anxieties as to the further course. Portunately at this mo-
ment Habib Paris arrived, and his sister-in-law, PauUna, an

20 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

old acquaintance, and several other worthies, all hastening to
" honour themselves " at the prospect of an evening's talk.
(" God forbid ! the honour is mine ! ") We settled down to
coffee, the bitter black coffee of the Arabs, which is better than
any nectar. The cup is handed with a "Deign to accept,"
you pass it back empty, murmuring "May you live ! ' As
you sip some one
ejaculates, " A double
health," and you reply,
" Upon your heart ! '*
When the cups had gone
round once or twice and
all necessary phrases of
politeness had been ex-
changed I entered upon
the business of the
evening. How was I to
reach the Druze inoun-
tains ? the Government
would probably refuse
me permission, at 'Am-
man there was a mili-
tary post on the entrance
of the desert road; at
Bosra they knew me,
I had slipped through
ABTss.N,AN PR.EST. t^eif fifigers five years

before, a tnck that
would be difficult to play a second time from the same
place. Habib Paris considered, and finally we hammered
out a plan between us. He would send me to-morrow to
Tneib, his com land on Ihe edge of the desert; there I
should find Namrud who would despatch word to one of the
big tnbes, and with an escort from them I could ride up in
safety to the hills. Yusef s two small sons sat listening open-
eyed, and at the end of the talk one of them brought me a scrap
of an advertisement with the map of America upon it. There-
at I showed them my maps, and told them how big the
world was and how fine a place, till at ten the party broke up

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 21

and Yusef began spreading quilts for my bed. Then and
not till then did I see my hostess. She was a woman of ex-
ceptional beauty, tall and pale, her face a full oval, her great
eyes like stars. She wore Arab dress, a narrow dark blue
robe that caught round her bare ankles as she walked, a dark
blue cotton veil bound about her forehead with a red hand-
kerchief and falling down her back almost to the ground. Her
chin and neck were tattooed in delicate patterns with indigo,
after the manner of the Bedouin women. She brought me
water, which she poured over my hands, moved about the
room silently, a dark and stately figure, and having finished her
ministrations she disappeared as silently as she had come, and
I saw her no more. " She came in and saluted me," said the
poet, he who lay in durance at Mecca, " then she rose and
took her leave, and when she departed my soul went out
after her." No one sees Yiisefs wife. Christian though he
be, he keeps her more strictly cloistered than any Moslem
woman; and perhaps after all he is right.

The rain beat against the windows, and I lay down on the
quilts with Mikhail's exclamation in my ears : " Masha-
'liah I your Excellency is fortunate."

CHAPTER II

The village of Salt is a prosperous community of over 10,000
souls, the half of them Christian. It lies in a rich country
famous for grapes and apricots, its gardens are mentioned
with praise as far back as the fourteenth century by the Arab
geographer Abu'l F.da. There is a ruined castle, of what date
I know not, on the hill above the clustered house roofs. The
tradition among the inhabitants is that the town is very
ancient; indeed, the Christians declare that in vSaltwas one of
the first of the congregations of their faith, and there is even a
legend that Christ was His own evangelist here. Although
the apricot trees shewed nothing as yet but bare boughs
the valley had an air of smiling wealth as I rode through it
with Hab'b Paris, who had mounted his mare to set me on
my way. He had his share in the apricot orchards and
the vineyards, and smiled agreeably, honest man, as I com-
mended them. Who would not have smiled en such a mom*
ing ? The sun shone, the earth glittered with frost, and the
air had a sparkling transparency which comes only on a
bright winter day after rain. But it was not merely a general
sense of goodwill that had inspired my words ; the Chris-
tians of Salt and of Madeba are an intelligent and an in-
dustrious race, worthy to be praised. During the five years
since I had visited this district they had pushed forward
the limit of cultivation two hours' ride to the east, and proved
the value of the land so conclusively that when the Hajj
railway was opened through it the Sultan laid hands on a
great tract stretching as far south as Ma' an. intending to
convert it into a chiflik, a royal farm. It will yield riches
to him and to his tenants, for if he be an indifferent ruler,
he is a good landlord.
Half an hour from Salt, Habib left me, committing me

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 23

to the care of his hind, Yusef, a stalwart man, who strode
by ray side with his wooden club (Gunwa, the Arabs call it)
over his shoulder. We journeyed through wide valleys,
treeless, uninhabited, and almost uncultivated, round the
head of the Eelka plain, and past the opening of the Wady
Sir, down which a man may ride through oak woods all
the way to the Gh5r. There would
be trees on the hills too if the char-
coal burners would let them grow
— we passed by many dwarf thickets
of oak and thorn — but I would have
nothing changed in the delicious
land east of Jordan. A generation
or two hence it will be deep in
com and scattered over with villages,
the waters of the Wady Sir will
turn mill-wheels, and perhaps there
will even be roads : praise be to
God ! I shall not be there to s?e.
In my lime the uplands will still
continue to be that delectable region
of which Omar Khaj^am sings : "The
strip of herbage strown that just
divides the desert from the sown"; '

they will still be empty save for a
stray shepherd standing over his flock with a long-barrelled
rifle; and when 1 meet the rare horseman who rides over
those hills and ask him whence he comes, he will stUl
answer : " May the world be wide to you ! from the
Arabs."

That was where we were going, to the Arabs. In the desert
there are no Bedouin, the tent dwellers are all 'Arab (with
a fine roll of the initial guttural), just as there are no tents
but houses — " houses of hair " they say sometimes if a quali-
fication be needed, but usually just " houses " with a supreme
disregard for any other significance to the word save that
of a black goat's hair roof. You may be 'Arab after a fashion
even if you live between walls. The men of Salt are classed
among the tribes of the Belka, with the Abadeh and the

24 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

Da'ja and the Hassaniyyeh and several more that form the
great troup of the 'Adwan. Two powerful rulers dispute the
mastership here of the Syrian desert, the Beni Sakhr and
the 'Anazeh. There is a traditional friendship, barred by regret-
table incidents, between the Sukhur and the Belka, perhaps
that was why I heard in these parts that the 'Anazeh were

the more numerous but the less distinguished for courage
of the two factions. I have a bowing acquaintance with
one of the sons of Talal ul Faiz, the head of all the Beni Sakhr.
I had met him five years before in these very plains, a month
later in the season, by which time his tribe moves Jordan-
wards out of the warm eastern pasturages. I was riding,
escorted by a Circassian zaptieh, from Madeba to Mshitta —
it was before the Germans had sliced the carved fa9ade from
that wonderful building. The plain was covered with the
flocks and the black tents of the Sukhur, and as we rode
through them three horsemen paced out to intercept us, black-

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 25

browed, armed to the teeth, menacing of aspect. They
threw us the salute from afar, but when they saw the
soldier they turned and rode slowly back. The Circassian
laughed. " That was Sheikh Faiz," he said, " the son of
Talal. Like sheep, wallah ! like sheep are they when they
meet one of us." I do not know the 'Anazeh, for their usual

seat in winter is nearer the Euphrates, but with all deference
to the Sukhur I fancy that their rivals are the true aristo-
cracy of the desert. Their ruling house, the Beni Sha'alan,
bear the proudest name, and their mares are the best in all
Arabia, so that even the Shammar, Ibn er Rashid's people,
seek after them to improve their own breed.

From the broken uplands that stand over the Ghor, we
entered ground with a shallow roll in it and many small
ruined sites dotted over it. There was one at the head of
the Wady Sir, and a quarter of an hour before we reached
it we had seen a considerable mass of foundations and a big
tank, which the Arabs call Birket Umm el 'Amud (the tank

26 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

of the Mother of the Pillar). Yusef said its name was due
to a column which used to stand in the middle of it, sur-
rounded by the water ; an Arab shot at it and broke it, and
its fragments lie at the bottom of the tank. The mound
or tell, to give it its native name, of Amereh is covered with
ruins, and further on at Yadudeh there are rock-hewn
tombs and sarcophagi lying at the edge of the tank. All
the frontier of the desert is strewn with similar vestiges of
a populous past, villages of the fifth and sixth centuries when
Madeba was a rich and flourishing Christian city, though
some are certainly earlier still, perhaps pre-Roman.
Yadudeh of the tombs was inhabited by a Christian from
Salt, the greatest corn-grower in these parts, who lived
in a roughly built farm-house on the top of the tell ; h^ too
is one of the energetic new-comers who are engaged in
spreading the skirts of cultivation. Here we left the rolling
country and passed put into the edges of a limitless plain,
green with scanty herbage, broken by a rounded tell or the
back of a low ridge — and then the plain once more, rest-
ful to the eye yet never monotonous, steeped in the magic
of the winter sunset, softly curving hollows to hold the mist,
softly swelling slopes to hold the light, and over it all the dome
of the sky which vaults the desert as it vaults the sea.
The first hillock was that of Tneib. We got in, after a nine
hours' march, at 5.30, just as the sun sank, and pitched tents
on the southern slope. The mound was thick with ruins,
low walls of rough-hewn stones laid without mortar, rock-
cut cisterns, some no doubt originally intended not for water
but for corn, for which purpose they are used at present,
and an open tank filled up with earth. Namrud had ridden
over to visit a neighbouring cultivator, but one of his men
set forth to tell him of my arrival and he returned at ten o'clock
under the frosty starlight, with many protestations of pleasure
and assurances that my wishes were easy of execution. So
I went to sleep wrapped in the cold silence of the desert, and
woke next day to a glittering world of sunshine and fair
prospects.

The first thing to be done was to send out to the Arabs.
After consultation,* the Da'ja, a tribe of the Belka, were

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 27

decided to be the nearest at hand and the most likely to
prove of use, and a messenger was despatched to their tents.
We spent the morning examining the mound and looking
through a mass of copper coins that had turned up under
Namrud's ploughshare — Roman all of them, one showing
dimly the features of Constantine, some earlier, but none of
the later Byzantine period, nor any of the time of the Crusaders ,

as far as the evidence of coinage goes, Tneib has been deserted
since the date of the Arab invasion. Namrud had discovered
the necropolis, but there was nothing to be found in the tombs,
which had probably been rifled centuries before. They were
rock-cut and of a cistern-like character. A double arch of the
solid rock with space between for a narrow entrance on the
surface of the ground, a few jutting excrescences on the side
walls, footholds to those who must descend, loculi running
like shelves round the chambers, one row on top of another,
such was their appearance. Towards the bottom of the
mound on the south side there were foundations of a
building which looked as though it might have been a
church. But these were poor results for a day's explora-
tion, and in the golden afternoon we rode out two hours

28 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

to the north into a wide valley set between low banks.
There were ruins strewn at intervals round the edge of it,
and to the east some broken walls standing up in the
middle of the valley — Namrud called the spot, Kuseir es
Sahl, the Little Castle of the Plain. Our objective
was a group of buildings at the western end, Khureibet
es Suk. First we came to a small edifice (41 feet by 39
feet 8 iaches, the greatest length being from east to west)
half buried in the ground. Two sarcophagi outside pointed to
its having been a mausoleum. The western wall was pierced by
an arched doorway, the arch being decorated with a flat mould-
ing. Above the level of the arch the walls narrowed by the extent
of a small set-back, and two courses higher a moulded cornice
ran round the building. A couple of hundred yards west
of the Kasr or castle (the Arabs christen most ruins either
castle or convent) there is a ruined temple. It had evidently
been turned at some period to other uses than those for
which it was intended, for there were ruined walls round the
two rows of seven columns and inexplicable cross walls
towards the western end of the colonnades. There appeared
to have been a double court beyond, and still further west
lay a complex of ruined foundations. The gateway was to
the east, the jambs of it decorated with delicate carving,
a fillet, a palmetto, another plain fillet, a torus worked with
a vine scroll, a bead and reel, an egg and dart and a second
palmetto on the cyma. The whole resembled very closely
the work at Palmyra — it could scarcely rival the stone lace-
work of Mshitta, and besides it had a soberer feeling, more
closely akin to classical models, than is to be found there.
To the north of the temple on top of a bit of rising ground,
there was another ruin which proved to be a second mauso-
leum. It was an oblong rectangle of masonry, built of large
stones carefully laid without mortar. At the south-east
comer a stair led into a kind of ante-chamber, level with
the surface of the ground at the east side owing to the slope
of the hill. There were column bases on the outer side of this
ante-chamber, the vestiges probably of a small colonnade which
had adorned the east facade. Six sarcophagi were placed
lengthways, two along each of the remaining walls, north,

THE TEMPLE, KHUEEIBET ES SUIJ

32 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

tribe was still far to the east, where the winter climate is less
rigorous), and the day's rain had been too much for the male
inhabitants. They had mounted their mares and ridden
in to Tneib, leaving their women and children to shift for
themselves during the night. An hour's society presented
attractions after the long wet day, and I joined the company.
Namrud's cave runs far into the ground, so far that it
must penetrate to the very centre of the hill of Tneib. The
first large chamber is obviously natural, except for the
low sleeping , places and mangers for cattle that have been
quarried out round the walls. A narrow passage carved
in the rock leads into a smaller room, and there are yet others
behind which I took on trust, the hot stuffy air and the
innumerable swarms of flies discouraging me from further
exploration. That evening the cave presented a scene primi-
tive and wild enough to satisfy the most adventurous spirit.
The Arabs, some ten or a dozen men clothed in red leather
boots and striped cloaks soaked with rain, were sitting in
the centre round a fire of scrub, in the ashes of which stood
the three coffee-pots essential to desert sociability. Behind
them a woman cooked rice over a brighter fire that cast a
flickering light into the recesses of the cave, and showed
Namrud's cattle munching chopped straw from the rock-
hewn mangers. A place comparatively free from mud was
cleared for me in the circle, a cup of coffee prepared, and the
talk went forward while a man might smoke an Arab pipe
five times. It was chiefly of the iniquities of the govern-
ment. The arm of the law, or rather the mailed fist of mis-
rule, is a constant menace upon the edges of the desert.
This year it had been quickened to baleful activity by the
necessities of war. Camels and mares had been commandeered
wholesale along the borders without hope of compensation
in money or in kind. The Arabs had gathered together
such live stock as was left to them and sent them away five
or six days to the east, where the soldiery dared not penetrate,
and Namrud had followed their example, keeping only such
cattle as he needed for the plough. One after another of
my fellow guests took up the tale : the guttural strong speech
rumbled round the cave. By God and Muhammad the

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 33

Prophet of God we called down such curses upon the Circas-
sian cavalry as should make those powerful horsemen reel in
their saddles. From time to time a draped head, with black
elf locks matted round the cheeks under the striped kerchief,
bent forward towards the glow of the ashes to pick up a hot
ember for the pipe bowl, a hand was stretched out to the
coffee cups, or the cooking fire flashed up under a pile of
thorn, the sudden light making the flies buzz and the cows
move uneasily. Na-
mrud was not best
pleased to see his
hardly gathered
store of fire - wood
melt away and his
coffee - beans disap-
pear by bandfuls
into the mortar.
("Wallah! they eat
little when they feed
themselves, but when
they are guests
much, they and their
horses ; and the com
is low at this late

season.") But the ka ^ o the la

word "guest" is sacred from Jordan to Euphrates and
Namrud knew well that he owed a great part of his position
and of his security to a hospitality which was extended to all
comers, no matter how inopportune. I added my quota to
the conviviality of the party by distributing a box of
cigarettes, and before I left a friendly feeling had been
established between me and the men of the Beni Sakhr.

The following day was little more promising than that
which had preceded it. The muleteers were most unwilling
to leave the shelter of the caves and expose their animals
to such rain in the open desert, and reluctantly I agreed to
postpone the journey, and sent them into MSdeba, three
hours away, to buy oats for the horses, cautioning them not
to mention from whom they came. It cleared a little in

34 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

the afternoon, and I rode across the plain southwards to
Kastal, a fortified Roman camp standing on a mound.

This type of camp was not uncommon on the eastern fron-
tiers of the Empire, and was imitated by the Ghassanids
when they estabUshed themselves in the Syrian desert,
if indeed Mshitta was, as has been surmised, but a more
exquisite example of the same kind of building. Kastal
has a strong enclosing wall broken by a single gate to the
east and by round bastions at the angles and along the sides.
Within, there is a series of parallel vaulted chambers leaving
an open court in the centre — the plan with slight variations
of Kal'at el Beida in the Safa and of the modem caravan-

• • •

serai.* To the north there is a separate building, probably
the Pr«torium, the house of the commander of the fortress.
It consists of an immense vaulted chamber, with a walled
court in front of it, and a round tower at the south-
west comer. The tower has a winding stair inside it and
a band of decoration about the exterior, rinceaux above
and fluted triglyphs below, with narrow blank metopes
between them. The masonry is unusually good, the walls
of great thickness ; with such defences stretching to his
furthest borders, the citizen of Rome might sleep secure o'
nights.

When I passed by Kastal, five years before, it was un-
inhabited and the land round it uncultivated, but a few
families of fellahin had established themselves now imder
the broken vaults and the young com was springing in the
levels below the walls, circumstances which should no doubt
warm the heart of the lover of humanity, but which will send
a cold chill through the breast of the archaeologist. There
is no obliterator like the plough-share, and no destroyer like
the peasant who seeks cut stones to build his hovel. I noted
another sign of encroaching civilisation in the shape of
two half-starved soldiers, the guard of the nearest halting-
place on the Haj j railroad, which is called Zlza after the ruins

* Admirable plans and photographs of the fort have been published
by Briinnow and Domaszewsld in vol. ii. of their great work, " Die
Provincia Arabia " This volume was not out at the time I visited
KastaL

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 35

a few miles to the west of it. The object of their visit
was the lean hen which one of them held in his hand. He
had reft it from its leaner companions in the fortress
court — on what terms it were better not to inquire, for
hungry men know no law. I was not particularly eager to
have my presence on these frontiers notified to the autho-
rities in 'AmmSn, and 1 left rather hastily and rode eastward
to ZizsL.
The rains had filled the desert watercourses, they do not

often flow so deep or so swiftly as the one we had to cross
that afternoon. It had filled, too, to the brim the great
Roman tank of Ziza, so that the Sukhur would find water
there all through the ensuing summer. The ruins are far
more extensive than those at Kastal ; there must have been a
great city here, for the foundations of houses cover a wide area.
Probably Kastal was the fortified camp guarding this city,
and the two together shared the name of Zlza, which is men-
tioned in the Notitia : " Equites Dalmatici Illyriciana Ziza."
There is a Saracenic Kal'ai, a fort, which was repaired by
Sheikh Soktan of the Sukhur, and had been furnished by him,
said Namrud, with a splendour unknown to the desert ; but
it has now fallen to the Sultan, since it stands in the territory
selected by him for his chiflik, and fallen also into ruin. The
mounds behind are strewn with foundations, among them
those of a mosque,^the mihrab of which was still visible to the

36 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

south. Ziza was occupied by a garrison of Egyptians in
Ibrahim Pasha's time, and it was his soldiers who completed
the destruction of the ancient buildings. Before they came
many edifices, including several Christian churches, were still
standing in an almost perfect state of preservation, so the
Arabs reported. We made our way homewards along
the edge of the railway embankment, and as we went we
talked of the possible advantages that the land might reap
from that same line.
l" ■ ''"■"' '" ' " - '~~~ 1 Namrud was doubt-

■ ■ ' ful on this subject.

I .He looked askance

at the officials and
the soldiery, indeed
he had more cause
to fear official
raiders, whose ra-
pacity could not be
disarmed by hospi-
tality, than the
Arabs, who were
under too many ob-
THE KAL'AH AT zizA ^ llgatioHs to him to

do him much harm.
He had sent up a few truck-loads of com to Damascus the
year before ; yes, it was an easier form of transport than his
camels, and quicker, if the goods arrived at all ; but generally
the com sacks were so much lighter when they reached the
city than when Namrud packed them into the trucks that the
profit vanished. This would improve perhaps in time — at
the time when lamps and cushions and all the fittngs of the
desert railway except the bare seats were allowed to remain
in the place for which they were made and bought. We
spoke, too, of superstition and of fears that clutch the heart
at night. There are certain places, said he, where the Arabs
would never venture after dark — haunted wells to which
thirsty men dared not approach, ruins where the weary would
not seek shelter, hollows that were bad camping grounds for
the solitary. What did they fear ? Jinn; who could tell

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 37

what men feared ? He himseH had startled an Arab almost
out of bis wits by jumping naked at him from a lonely pool
in the half light of the dawn. The man ran back to his tents,
and swore that he had seen a jinni, and that the flocks should
not go down to water where it abode, till Namrud came in
and laughed at him and told his own tale.

We did not go straight back to my tents. I had been
invited out to dine that evening by Sheikh Nahar of the Beni
Sakhr, he who
had spent the
previous night in
Namiud's cave ;
and after consul-
tat ion it had
been decided
that the invita-
tion was one
which a person of
my exalted dig-
nity would not be
compromised by

accepting. ^ christian BNCAMPMENT

" But in gene-
ral," added Namrud, " you should go nowhere but to a
great sheikh's tent, or you will fall into the hands of
those who invite you only for the sake of the present you
will give. Nahar — well, he is an honest man, thcugh he be
Meskin," — a word that covers all forms of mild contempt,
from that which is extended to honest poverty, through
imbecility to the first stages of feeble vice.

The Meskin received me with the dignity of a prince, and
motioned me to the place of honour on the ragged carpet
between the square hole in the ground that serves as hearth
and the partition that separates the women's quarters from
the men's. We had tethered our horses to the long tent ropes
that give such wonderful solidity to the frail dwelling, and
our eyes wandered out from where we sat over the eastward
sweep of the landscape — swell and fall, fall and swell, as
though the desert breathed quietly under the gathering night.

38 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

The lee side of an Arab tent is always open to the air ; if the
wmd shifts the women take down the tent wall and set it up
against another quarter, and in a moment your house has
changed its outlook and faces gaily to the most favourable
prospect. It is so small and so light and yet so strongly
anchored that the storms can do little to it ; the coarse meshes
of the goat's hair cloth swell and close together in the wet so
that it needs continuous rain carried on a high wind before a
cold stream leaks into the dwelling-place.

The coffee beans were roasted and crushed, the coffee-pots
were simmering in the ashes, when there came three out of
the East and halted at the open tent. They were thick-set,
broad-shouldered men, with features of marked irregularity
and projecting teeth, and they were cold and wet with rain.
Room was made for them in the circle round the hearth, and
they stretched out their fingers to the blaze, while the talk
went on uninterrupted, for they were only three men of the
Sherarat, come down to buy com in Moab, and the Sherarat,
though they are one of the largest and the most powerful
of the tribes and the most famous breeders of camels, are
of bad blood, and no Arab of the Belka would intermarry
with them. Thev have no fixed haunts, not even in the time
oi the summer drought, but roam the inner desert scarcely
caring if they go without water for days together. The
conversation round Nahar's fire was of my journey. A negro
of the Sukhur, a powerful man with an intelligent face, was
very anxious to come with me as guide to the Druze moun-
tains, but he admitted that as soon as he reached the territory
of those valiant hillmen he would have to turn and flee — there
is always feud between the Druzes and the Beni Sakhr. The
negro slaves of the Sukhur are well used by their masters,
who know their worth, and they have a position of their own
in the desert, a glory reflected from the great tribe they serve.
I was half inclined to accept the present offer in spite of the
possible drawback of having the negro dead upon my hands
at the first Druze village, when the current of my thoughts
was interrupted by the arrival of yet another guest. He
was a tall young man, with a handsome delicate face, a com-
plexion that was almost fair, and long curls that were almost

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 39

brown. As he approached, Nahar and the other sheikhs of
the Sukhur rose to meet him, and before he entered the tent,
each in turn kissed him upon both cheeks. Namrud rose
also, and cried to him as he drew near :

" Good ? please God ! Who is with you -■' "

The young man
raised his hand
and rephed :

" God ! "

He was alone.

Without seem-
ing to notice the
rest of the com-
pany, his eye em-
braced the three
sheikhs of the
SherarSt eating
mutton and curds
in the entrance,
and the strange
woman by the fire,
as with murmured
salutations he
passed into the
back of the tent,
refusing Nahar's
offer of food- He

was Gablan, of flo.ks of the .ukhCr

the ruling houseof the Da'ja, cousin to the reigning sheikh, and,
as I subsequently found, he had heard that Namrud needed
a guide for a foreigner — news travels apace in the desert —
and had come to take me to his uncle's tents. We had not
sat for more than five minutes after his arrival when Nahar
whispered something to Namrud, who turned to me and
suggested that since we had dined we might go and take
Gablan with us. I was surprised that the evening's gossip
should be cut so short, but I knew better than to make any
objection, and as we cantered home across Namrud's ploughland
and up the hill of Tneib, I heard the reason. There was

40 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

blood between the Da'ja and the Sherarat. At the first
glance Gablan had recognised the lineage of his fellow guests,
and nad therefore retired silently into the depths of the tent.
He would not dip his hand in the same mutton dish with them.
Nahar knew, as who did not ? the difficuly of the situation,
but he could not tell how the men of the Sherarat would take
it, and, for fear of accidents, he had hurried us away. But
by next morning the atmosphere had cleared (metaphorically,
not literally), and a day of streaming rain kept the blood
enemies sitting amicably round Namrud's coffee-pots in the
cave.

The third day's rain was as much as human patience could
endure. I had forgotten by this time what it was like not to
feel damp, to have warm feet and dry bed clothes. Gablan
spent an hour with me in the morning, finding out what I
wished of him. I explained that if he could take me through
the desert where I should see no military post and leave
me at the foot of the hills, I should desire no more. Gablan
considered a moment.

" Oh lady," said he, " do you think you will be brought
into conflict with the soldiery ? for if so, I will take my rifle."

I replied that I did not contemplate declaring open war
with all the Sultan's chivalry, and that with a little care I
fancied that such a contingency might be avoided ; but Gablan
was of opinion that strategy went further when winged with a
bullet, and decided that he would take his rifle with him all the
same.

In the afternoon, having nothing better to do, I watched
the Sherarat buying com from Namrud. But for my incon-
gruous presence and the lapse of a few thousand years, they
might have been the sons of Jacob come down mto Egypt
to bicker over the weight of the sacks with their brother
Joseph. The corn was kept in a deep dry hole cut in the rock,
and was drawn out like so much water in golden bucketsful.
It had been stored with chaff for its better protection, and
the first business was to sift it at the well-head, a labour that
could not be executed without much and angry discussion.
Not even the camels were silent, but joined in the argument
with groans and bubblings, as the Arabs loaded them with the

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 41

full sacks. The Sheikhs of the Sukhur and the Sherarat sat
round on stones m the drizzUng mist, and sometimes they
muttered, "God! God 1" and sometimes they exclaimed,
*' He is merciful and compassionate!" Not infrequently
the sifted com was poured back among the unsifted, and a
dialogue of this sort ensued:

Namrnd : " Upon thee ! upon thee ! oh boy ! may thy
dwelhng be destroyed ! may thy days _

come to harm 1 " ' .

Bent Sakhr : " By the face of the
Prophet of God ! may He be ex-
alted ! "

Sherarat [in suppressed chorus) :
" God ! and Muhammad the Pro-
phet of God, upon Him be peace ! "

A party in bare legs and a sheepskin :
" Cold, cold ! Wallah ! rain and
cold ! "

NamrSd : " Silence, oh brother 1
descend into the well and draw corn-
It is warm there."

Beni Sakhr : " Praise be to God
the Almighty ! "

Chorus of Camels : " B-b-b-b-b-dd-
G-r-r-o-o-a-a,"

_ , ^ . ,, -r. .,. * ROMA]

Camel Drivers : Be still, ac-
cursed ones ! may you slip in the mud ! may the wrath of
God fall on you ! "

Sukhur {in unison) : " God ! God ! by the light of His
Face ! "

At dusk I went into the servants' tent and found Namrud
whispering tales of murder over the fire on which my dinner
was a-cooking.

" In the days when I was a boy," said he (and they were
not far behind us), "you could not cross the Ghor in peace.
But I bad a mare who walked — wallah ! how she walked ! Be-
tween sunrise and sunset she walked me from Mezerib to Salt,
"and never broke her pace. And besides I was well known to
all the Ghawamy (natives of the Ghor). And one night in

42 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

summer I had to go to Jerusalem — force upon me ! I must
ride. The waters of Jordan were low, and I crossed at
the ford, for there was no bridge then. And as I reached the
further bank I heard shouts and the snap of bullets. And I
hid in the tamarisk bushes more than an hour till the moon
was low, and then I rode forth softly. And at the entrance
of the mud hills the mare started from the path, and I looked
down and saw the body of a man, naked and covered with
knife wounds. And he was quite dead. And as I gazed they
sprang out on me from the mud hills, ten horsemen and I was
but one. And I backed against the thicket' and fired twice with
my pistol, but they surrounded me and threw me from the
mare and bound me, and setting me again upon the mare they
led me away. And when they came to the halting place
they fell to discussing whether they should kill me, and one
said : ' Wallah ! let us make an end.' And he came near
and looked into my face, and it was dawn. And he said : * It
is Namrud ! * for he knew me, and I had succoured him. And
they imbound me and let me go, and I rode up to Jerusalem."

The muleteers and I listened with breathless interest as
one story succeeded another.

" There are good customs and bad among the Arabs," said
Namrud, " but the good are many. Now when they wish
to bring a blood feud to an end, the two enemies come to-
gether in the tent of him who was offended. And the lord
of the tent bares his sword and turns to the south and draws
a circle on the floor, calling upon God. Then he takes a
shred of the cloth of the tent and a handful of ashes from
the hearth and throws them in the circle, and seven times
he strikes the line with his naked sword. And the offender
leaps into the circle, and one of the relatives of his enemy
cries aloud : ' I take the murder that he did upon me ! *
Then there is peace. Oh lady ! the women have much power
in the tribe, and the maidens are well looked on. For if a
maiden says : * I would have such an one for my husband,*
he must marry her lest she should be put to shame. And if
he has already four wives let him divorce one, and marry in
her place the maiden who has chosen him. Such is the custom
among the Arabs."

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 43

He turned to my Druze muleteer and continued :

** Oh Muhammad ! have a care. The tents of the Sukhur
are near, and there is never any peace between the Beni Sakhr
and the Druzes. And if they knew you, they would cer-
tainly kill you — not only would they kill you, but they would
bum you sdive, and the lady could not shield you, nor could I."

This was a grim light upon the character of my friend
Nahar, who had exchanged with me hospitality against a
kerchief, and the little group round the fire was somewhat
taken back. But Mikhail was equal to the occasion.

" Let not your Excellency think it," said he, deftly dish-
ing up some stewed vegetables ; " he shall be a Christian till
we reach the Jebel Druze, and his name is not Muhammad
but Tarif, for that is a name the Christians use."

So we converted and baptized the astonished Muhammad
before the cutlets could be taken out of the frying-pan.

CHAPTER III

The morning of Sunday, the 12th of February, was still stormy,
but I resolved to go. The days spent at Tneib had not been
wasted. An opportunity of watching hour by hour the life of
one of these outlying farms comes seldom, but my thoughts had
travelled forward, and I longed to follow the path they had
taken. I caught them up, so it seemed to me, when Gablan,
Namrud and I heard the hoofs of our mares ring on the metals
of the Haj] railway and set our faces towards the open desert.
We rode east by north, leaving Mshitta a little to the south,
and though no one who knew it in its loveliness could have
borne to revisit those ravished walls, it must be not forgotten
that there is something to be said for the act of vandalism
that stripped them. If there had been good prospect that
the ruin should stand as it had stood for over a thousand
years, uninjured save by the winter rains, it ought to have
been allowed to remain intact in the rolling country to which it
gave so strange an impress of delicate and fantastic beauty ;
but the railway has come near, the plains will fill up, and
neither Syrian fellah nor Turkish soldier can be induced to
spare walls that can be turned to practical uses. Therefore
let those who saw it when it yet stood unimpaired, cherish its
memory with gratitude, and without too deep a regret.

Namrud and Gablan chatted without a pause. Late in the
previous night two soldiers had presented themselves at the
door of the cave, and having gained admittance they had told
a strange tale. They had formed part, so they affirmed, of
the troops that the Sultan had despatched from Baghdad to
help Ibn er Rashid against Ibn Sa'oud. They related how
the latter had driven them back step by step to the very
gates of Hail, Ibn er Rashid's capital, and how as the two
armies lay facing one anothher Ibn Sa'oud with a few followers

f I

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 47

had ridden up to his enemy's tent and laid his hand upon
the tent pole so that the prince of the Shammar had no choice
but to let him enter. And then and there they had come
to an agreement, Ibn er Rashid relinquishing all his territory
to within a mile or two of Hail, but retaining that city and the

lands to the north of it, including Jof, and recognising Ibn
Sa'oud's sovereignty over Riad and its extended fief. The
two soldiers had made the best of their way westward across
the desert, for they said most of their companions in arms
were slain and the rest had fled. This was by far the most
authentic news that I was to receive from Nejd, and I have
reason to believe that it was substantially correct-* I ques-
tioned many of the Arabs as to Ibn er Rashid's character ;

" Since the events above recorded, Ibn Sa'ood has, I believe, come
to terms with the Sultan after a vain appeal to a stronger aUy, and
Ibn er Rashid is reported to be struggling to turn out the Turkish
garrisons which were appointed nominally to aid him. Quite recently
there haa t>eea a rumour that Ibn er Rashid is dead.

48 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

the answer was almost invariably the same. " Sh5tir jiddan,"
they would say ; "he is very shrewd," but after a moment
they would add, "majnun" ("but mad"). A reckless man
and a hot-headed, so I read him, with a restless intelligence
and little judgment, not strong enough, and perhaps not cruel
enough, to enforce his authority over the unruly tribes whom
his uncle, Muhammad, held in a leash of fear (the history of
the war has been one long series of betrayals on the part of his

' ' ' '}

own allies), and too proud, if the desert judges him rightly, to
accept the terms of the existing peace. He is persuaded that
the English government armed Ibn Sa'oud against him, his
reason being that it was the Sheikh of Kweit, believed to be
our ally, who furnished that homeless exile with the means of
re-establishing himself in the country his ancestors had ruled,
hoping thereby to weaken the influence of the Sultan on the
borders of Kweit. The beginning of the trouble was possibly
the friendship with the Sultan into which Ibn er Rashid saw
fit to enter, a friendship blazoned to the worid by the appear-
ance of Shammari mares in Constantinople and Circassian
girls in Hail ; but as for the end, there is no end to war in the
desert, and any grievance will serve the turn of an impetuous
young sheikh.

Though we were riding through plains which were quite
deserted and to the casual observer almost featureless, we
«ldom travelled for more than a mile without reachine a sdo*

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 49

that had a name. In listening to Arab talk you are struck
by this abundant nomenclature. If you ask where a certain
sheikh has pitched his tents you will at once be given an exact
answer. The map is blank, and when you reach the encamp-
ment the landscape is blank also. A rise in the ground, a
big stone, a vestige of ruin, not to speak of every possible
hollow in which there may be water either in winter or in

summer, these are marks sufficiently distinguishing to the
nomad eye. Ride with an Arab and you shall realise why
the pre-Mohammadan poems are so full of names, and also
how vain a labour it would be to attempt to assign a definite
spot to the greater number of them, for the same name recurs
hundreds of times. We presently came to a little mound
which Gablan called Thelelet el Hirsheh and then to another
rather smaller called Theleleh, and here Gablan drew rein and
pointed to a couple of fire-blackened stones upon the
ground. '

" That," said he, " was my hearth. Here I camped five
years ago. Yonder was my father's tent, and the son of my
uncle pitched his below the slope"

I might have been riding with Imr ul Kais, or with any of
the great singers of the Age of Ignorance, whose odes take

50 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

swinging flight lifted on just such a theme, the changeless
theme of the evanescence of desert existence.

The clouds broke in rain upon us, and we left Theleleh and
paced on east — an Arab when he travels seldom goes quicker
than a walk — ^while Namrud, according to his habit, beguiled
the way with story telling.

" Oh lady," said he, " I will tell you a tale well known
among the Arabs, without doubt Gablan has heard it. There
was a man — -lie is dead now, but his sons still live — ^who had a
blood feud, and in the night his enemy fell upon him with many
horsemen, and they drove away his flocks and his camels and
his mares and seized his tents and all that he had. And he
who had been a rich man and much honoured was reduced
to the extreme of necessity. So he wandered forth till he
came to the tents of a tribe that was neither the friend nor
the foe of his people, and he went to the sheikh's tent and laid
his hand on the tent pole and said : * Oh sheikh ! I am your
guest ' " (* Ana dakhilak,' the phrase of one who seeks for hos-
pitality and protection)." And the sheikh rose and led him
in and seated him by the hearth, and treated him with kind-
ness. And he gave him sheep and a few camels and cloth for a
tent, and the man went away and prospered so that in ten years
he was again as rich as before. Now after ten years it hap-
pened that misfortune fell upon the sheikh who had been his
host, and He in turn lost all that he possessed. And the sheikh
said : * I will go to the tents of so-and-so, who is now rich, and
he will treat me as I treated him.' Now when he reached the
tents the man was away, but his son was within. And the
sheikh laid his hand on the tent pole, and said, * Ana dakhilak,'
and the man's son answered : * I do not know you, but since
you claim our protection come in and my mother will make
you coffee.' So the sheikh came in, and the woman called
him to her hearth and made him coffee, and it is an indignity
among the Arabs that the coffee should be made by the women.
And while he was sitting by the women's hearth, the lord
of the tent returned, and his son went out and told him that
the sheikh had come. And he said : ' We will keep him for
the night since he is our guest, and at dawn we will send him
Away lest we should draw his feud upon ourselves.' And

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

they put the sheikh in a comer of the tent and gave him only
bread and coffee, and next day they bade him go. And they
sent an escort of two horsemen with him for a day's journey,
as is the usage among the Arabs with one who has sought
their protection and goes in fear of his life, and then they left
him to starve or to fall among
his enemies. But such in-
gratitude is rare, praise be to
God ! and therefore the tale
is not forgotten."

We were now nearing some
slopes that might almost be
dignified with the name of
hills. They formed a great
semicircle that stretched away
to the south and in the hollow
of their arm Fellah ul 'Isa had
pitched his tents. The Da'ja,
when I was with them, occu-
pied all the plam below the
amphitheatre of the Jebel el
'Alya and also the country to
the north-west between the
hills and the river Zerka
Mujemir, the young sheikh,
was camped to the north, his -
two uncles. Fellah ul 'Isa and . ,

Hamud, the father of Gablan, '°"*'* '"' "* *" "'"''^

together in the plain to the south. I did not happen to see
Hamud ; he had ridden away to visit some of his herds. Gablan
put his horse to a canter and went on ahead to announce our
arrival. As we rode up to the big sheikh's tent a white-
haired man came out to welcome us. This was my host,
Fellah ul 'Isa, a sheikh renowned throughout the Belka for
his wisdom and possessed of an authority beyond that which
an old man of a ruling house exercises over his own tribe.
Six months before he had been an honoured guest among the
Druzes,who are not used to receiving Arab sheikhs on terms of
friendship, and for this reason Nsimrud had selected him as the

52 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

best of counsellors in the matter of my journey. We were '
obliged to sit in his tent till coffee had been made, which
ceremony occupied a full hour. It was conducted in a dig-
nified silence, broken only by the sound of the pestle crushing
the beans in the mortar, a music dear to desert ears and not
easy of accomplished execution. By the time coffee drinking
was over the sun had come out and with Gablan and Namrud
I rode up the hills north of the camp to inspect some ruins
reported by the Arabs.

The Jebel el 'Alya proved to be a rolling upland that
extended for many miles, sloping gradually away to the north
and north-east. The general trend of the range is from
west to south-east ; it rises abruptly out of the plains and
carries upon its crest a series of ruins out of which I saw two.
They seem to have been a line of forts guarding a frontier that,
in the absence of inscriptions, may be conjectured to have
been Ghassanid. The first of the ruined sites lay immediately
above Fellah ul 'Isa's camp — I surmise it to have been the
Kasr el Ahla (a name unknown to the Da'ja) marked on the
Palestine Exploration map close to the Hajj road. If this
be so, it lies four or five miles further east than the map
makers have placed it, and its name should be written Kasr el
'Alya. It was a small tell, ringed round with the foundations
of walls that enclosed an indistinguishable mass of ruins.
We rode forward some three or four miles to the east, and at
the head of a shallow valley on the northern side of the Jebel
el 'Alya we found a large tank, about 120 feet by 150 feet, care-
fully built of dressed stones and half full of earth. Above
it, nearer the top of the hill, there was a group of ruins called
by the Arabs El Muwaggar.* It must have been a mili-
tary post, for there seemed to be few remains of small
dweUings such as would point to the existence of a town. To
the east lay a building that the Arabs maintain to have been
a stable. It was planned like a church, in three parallel cham-
bers, the nave being divided from the aisles by arcades of
which six arches on either side were standing, round arches

* El Muwakkar it is written, but the Eedouin change the hard k
into a hard g. The site has been described in "Die Provincia
Arabia," vol ii.

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 53

resting on piers of masonry. On the inner sides of these
piers were holes through which to fasten tethering ropes, and
possibly horses may at some period have been stabled between
the arches. The three chambers were roofed with barrel
vaults, and wall and vault alike were built of small stones set
in brittle, crumbling mortar. A few hundred yards to the

r MUWACGAR

north west there was a big open cistern, empty ot water, with
plastered sides and a flight of steps at one comer. The largest
ruin was still further to the north-west, almost li the summit
of the hill ; it is called by the Arabs the Kasr, and was probably
a fortress or barracks. The main entrance was 10 tiie cast,
and since the ground sloped away here, the /agade was sup-
ported on a substructure of eight vaults, above which were
traces of three, or perhaps four, doorways that could only have
been approached by flights of steps. Moulded piers had stood
on either side of the doorways — a few were still in their places
— and the /afdi/e had been enriched with columns and a c

54 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

of which the fragments were strewn over the ground below
together with capitals of various designs, all of them drawn
from a Corinthian prototype, though many were widely dis-
similar from the parent pattern. Some of the mouldings
showed very simple rinceaax, a trefoil set in the alternate
curves of a flowing stalk, others were torus-shaped and covered
with the scales of the palm trunk pattern. The width of the
facade was forty paces ; behind it was an ante-chamber

separated by a
cross wall from
a square enclo-
sure. Whether
there had been
rooms round
the inside of
this enclosure I
could not deter-
mine ; it was
heaped up with
ruins and over-
grown with turf.
On either side

A CAPITAL AT MDWAClf-AR t lU ■ Ui

of the eight
parallel vaults there was another vaulted chamber form-
ing ten in all ; but the two supplementary vaults did
not appear to have supported a superstructure of any
kind, the massive side walls of the ante-chamber resting
on the outer walls of the eight central vaults. The
masonry was of squared stones with rubble between, set
in mortar.

We rode back straight down the hill and so along the
plain at its foot, passing another ruined site as we went,
Najereh was its name. Such heaped up mounds of cut stones
the Arabs call " rujm " ; it would be curious to know how far
east they are to be found, how far the desert was inhabited
by a permanent population. A day's journey from 'Alya,
said Gablan, there is another fort called Kharaneh, and a
third not far from it, Umm er Resas, and more besides, some
of tbem with pictures, and all easy to visit in the winter when

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 55

the western pasturages are comparatively empty.* As we

rode he taught me to read the desert, to mark the hollow

squares of big stones laid for the beds of Arab boys, and the

semi-circular nests in the earth that the mother camels scoop

out for their young. He taught me also the names of the

plants that dotted the ground, and I found that though the

flora of the desert is scanty in quantity, it is of many varieties,

and that almost every kind has been put to some useful end

by the Arabs. With the

leaf of the utrufan they

scent their butter, from

the prickly kursa'aneh

they make an excellent

salad, on the dry sticks

of the billan the camels

feed, and the sheep on

those of the shih, the

ashes of the g3li are

used in soap ' boiling.

The role of teacher -- '-.

amused Gablan, and as

wc passed from one
prickly blue-grey tuft to another equally blue-grey and
prickly, he would say : " Oh lady, what is this ? " and
smile cheerfully if the answer came right.

I was to dine that night in Fellah ul 'Isa's tent, and when
the last bar of red light still lay across the west Gablin came
to fetch me. The little encampment was already alive with
all the combination of noises that animates the desert after
darkt the grunting and groaning of camels, the bleating of
sheep and goats and the uninterrupted barking of dogs.
There was no light in the sheikh's tent save that of the fire ;
my host sitting opposite me was sometimes hidden in a
column of pungent smoke and sometimes illumined by a
leaping flame. When a person of consideration comes as
guest, a sheep must be killed in honour of the occasion, and
accordmglywe eat with our fingers a bountiful meal of mutton

* Several of these ruins were visited by Musil, but his book is not
yot published.

56 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

and curds and flaps of bread. But even on feast nights the
Arab eats astonishingly little, much less than a European
woman with a good appetite, and when there is no guest in
camp, bread and a bowl of camel's milk is all they need.
It is true they spend most of the day asleep or gossiping in
the sun, yet I have seen the 'Agel making a four months'
march on no more generous fare. Though they can go on
such short commons, the Bedouin must seldom be without
the sensation of hunger ; they are always lean and thin, and
any sickness that falls upon the tribe carries off a large pro-
portion of its numbers. My servants feasted too, and since
we had left Muhammad, or rather Tarif the Christian, to
guard the tents in our absence, a wooden bowl was piled
with food and sent out into the night " for the guest who has
remained behind."

Fellah ul 'Isa and Namrud fell into an interesting dis-
cussion over the coffee, one that threw much light on the
position of the tribes of the Belka. They are hard pressed
by encroaching civilisation. Their summer quarters are
gradually being filled up with fellahin, and still worse, their
summer watering places are now occupied by Circassian
colonists settled by the Sultan in eastern Syria when the
Russians turned them out of house and home in the Caucasus.
The Circassians are a disagreeable people, morose and quarrel-
some, but industrious and enterprising beyond measure,
and in their daily contests with the Arabs they invariably
come off victors. Recently they have made the drawing of
water from the Zerka, on which the Bedouin are dependent
during the summer, a casus belli, and it is becoming more and
more impossible to go down to 'Amman, the Circassian head-
quarters, for the few necessities of Arab life, such as coffee
and sugar and tobacco. Namrud was of opinion that the
Belka tribes should have asked the Government to appoint
a Kaimakam over their district to protect their interests;
but Fellah ul 'Isa hesitated to call in King Stork, fearing the
military service he might impose, the enforced registration
of cattle and other hateful practices. The truth is that the
days of the Belka Arabs are numbered. To judge by the ruins,
it will be possible, as it was possible in past centuries, to

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 57

establish a fixed population all over their territory, and they
will have to choose between themselves building villages and
cultivating the ground or retreating to the east where water is
almost unobtainable in the summer, and the heat far greater
than they care to face.

Namrud turned from these vexed questions to extol the
English rule in Egypt. He had never been there, but he had
heard tales from one of his cousins who was a clerk in Alex-
andria ; he knew that the fellahin had grown rich and that
the desert was as
peaceful as were
the cities.

" Blood feud
has ceased," said
he, " and raid-
ing; for when a
man steals an-
other's camels,
look you what
happens. The
owner of the
camels comes to
the nearest konak and lays his complaint, and a zaptieh
rides out alone through the desert till he reaches the robber's
tent. Then he throws the salaam and enters. What does
the lord of the tent do ? he makes coffee and tries to
treat the zaptieh as a guest. But when the soldier has
drunk the coffee he places money by the hearth, saying,
' Take this piastre,* and so he pays for all he eats and
drinks and accepts nothing. And in the morning he de-
parts, leaving orders that in so many daj's the camels must
be at the konak. Then the robber, being afraid, gathers
together the camels and sends them in, and one, may be,
is missing, so that the number is short. And the judge says to
the lord of the camels, ' Are all the beasts here ? ' and
he replies, ' There is one missing.' And he says, ' Wliat
is its value ? ' and he answers, ' Eight liras.' Then the
judge says to the other, ' Pay him eight liras.' Wallah ! he
pays."

58 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

Fellah ul 'Isa expressed no direct approval of the advan-
tages of this system, but he listened with interest while I ex-
plained the principles of the Fellahin Bank, as far as I under-
stood them, and at the end he asked whether Lord Cromer
could not be induced to extend his rule to Syria, an invitation
that I would not undertake to accept in his name. Five years
before, in the Hauran mountains, a similar question had been
put to me, and the answering of it had taxed my diplomacy.
The Druze sheikhs of Kanawat had assembled in my tent
under shadow of night, and after much cautious beating about
the bush and many assurances from me that no one was
listening, they had asked whether if the Turks again broke
their treaties with the Mountain, the Druzes might take refuge
with Lord Cromer in Egypt, and whether I would not charge
myself with a message to him. I replied with the air of one
weighing the proposition in all its aspects that the Druzes
were people of the hill country, and that Egypt was a plain,
and would therefore scarcely suit them. The Sheikh el Balad
looked at the Sheikh ed Din, and the horrible vision of a land
without mountain fastnesses in which to take refuge, or
moimtain paths easy to defend, must have opened before their
eyes, for they replied that the matter required much thought,
and I heard no more of it. Nevertheless the moral is obvious :
all over Syria and even in the desert, whenever a man is ground
down by injustice or mastered by his own incompetence, he
wishes that he were imder the rule that has given wealth to
Egypt, and our occupation of that country, which did so much
at first to alienate from us the sympathies of Mohammedans,
has proved the finest advertisement of English methods of
government.*

* The present unrest in Egypt may seem to throw a doubt upon
the truth of these observations, but I do not believe this to be the
case. The Eg5rptiaiis have forgotten the miseries from which our ad-
ministration rescued them, the Syrians and the people of the desert
are still labouring under them, and in their eyes the position of theii
neighbours is one of unalloyed and enviable ease. But when once the
wolf is driven from the door, the restraints imposed by an immutable
law eat into the temper of a restless, unstable population accustomed
to reckon with misrule and to profit by the frequent laxity and the
occasional opportunities of undeserved advancement which charac-
terise it. Justice is a capital thing when it guards your legal righti»

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 59

As I sat listening to the talk round me and looking out
into the starlit night, my mind went back to the train of
thought that had been the groundwork of the whole day, the
theme that Gablan had started when he, stopped and pointed
out the traces of his former encampment, and I said ;

"In the ages before the
Prophet your fathers spoke as
you do and in the same lan-
guE^e, but we " who do not
know your wajre have lost the
meaning of the words they
used. Now tell me what is
so-and-so, and so-and-so ? "

The men round the fire
bent forward, and when a
flame jumped up I saw their
dark faces as they listened,
and answered :

" By God ! did they say
thai before the Prophet ? "

" MSsha'llah ! we use that
word still. It is the mark on
the ground where the tent was
pitched."

Thus encouraged I quoted
the couplet of Imr ul Kais

which Gablan's utterance had ^^^^j„ „„ „^„(,„ ^„ „^,j^
suggested.

" Stay I let us weep the memory of the Beloved and her
resting-place in the cleft of the shifting sands 'twixt ed Dujel
and Haumal."

Gablin, by the tent pole, lifted his head and exclaimed :
" M3sha'llah I that is 'Ajitara."

All poetry is ascribed to 'Antara by the imlettered Arab ;
he knows no other name in literature.

I answered : " No ; 'Antara spoke otherwise. He said :
* Have the poets aforetime left ought to be added by me ?
but most damnable when you wish to usurp the rights of others.
FeUa^ al '!» and his Icimd would not be slow to discover its detects.

6o THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

or dost thou remember her house when thou lookest on the
place ? ' And Lebid spoke best of all when he said : ' And
what is man but a tent and the folk thereof ? one day
they depart and the place is left desolate.' "

Gablan made a gesture of assent.

" By God ! " said he, " the plain is covered with places
wherein I rested."

He had struck the note. I looked out beyond him into the
night and saw the desert with his eyes, no longer empty but set
thicker with human associations than any city. Every line of it
took on significance, every stone was Uke the ghost of a hearth in
which the warmth of Arab life was hardly cold, though the fire
might have been extinguished this hundred years. It was a
city of shadowy outlines visible one under the other, fleeting
and changing, combining into new shapes elements that are
as old as Time, the new indistinguishable from the old and the
old from the new.

There is no name for it. The Arabs do not speak of desert
or wilderness as we do. Why should they? To them it is
neither desert nor wilderness, but a land of which they know
every feature, a mother country whose smallest product has a
use sufficient for their needs. They know, or at least they
knew in the days when their thoughts shaped themselves in
deathless verse, how to rejoice in the great spaces and how to
honour the rush of the storm. In many a couplet they ex-
tolled the beauty of the watered spots ; they sang of the fly
that hummed there, as a man made glad with wine croons
melodies for his sole ears to hear, and of the pools of rain that
shone like silver pieces, or gleamed dark as the warrior's mail
when the wind ruffled them. They had watched, as they
crossed the barren watercourses, the laggard wonders of the
night, when the stars seemed chained to the sky as though
the dawn would never come. Imr ul Kais had seen the
Pleiades caught like jewels in the net of a girdle, and with the
wolf that howled in the dark he had claimed fellowship :
*' Thou and I are of one kindred, and, lo, the furrow that thou
ploughest and that I plough shall yield one harvest." But
by night or by day there was no overmastering terror, no
meaningless fear and no enemy that could not be vanquished.

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 6i

They did not cry for help, those poets of the Ignorance, either
to man or God ; but when danger fell upon them they remem-
bered the maker of their sword, the lineage of their horse and
the prowess of their tribe, and their own right hand was enough
to carry them through. And then they gloried as men should .
glory whose blood flows hot in their veins, and gave no thanks
where none were due.

This is the temper of verse as splendid of its kind as any
that has fallen from
the lips of men.
Every string of Arab
experience is touched
in turn, and the
deepest chords of
feeling are resonant.
There are no finer
lines than those in
which Lebidsumsup
his appreciation of
existence, a poem

, .1 O" THE HAJJ ROAD

where each one ot

the fourteen couplets is instinct with a grave and tragic
dignity beyond all praise, He looks sorrow in the face, old age
and death, and ends with a solemn admission of the limitations
of human wisdom : " By thy hfe ! the casters of pebbles and
the watchers of the flight of birds, how know they what God is
doing ? " The voice of warning is never the voice of dismay.
It recurs often enough, but it does not check the wild daring
of the singer. "Death is no chooser ! " cries Tarafa, "the
miser or the free-handed, Death has his rope round the swift
flying heel of him ! " But he adds : " What dost thou
fear ? To-day is thy life." And as fearlessly Zuhair sets
forth his experience : " To-day I know and yesterday
and the days that were, but for to-morrow mine eyes are
sightless. For I have seen Doom let out in the dark like a
blind camel ; those it struck died and those it missed lived
to grow old." The breath of inspiration touched all alike,
old and young, men and women, and among the most
exquisite remnants of the desert heritage is a dirge sung

62 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

by a sister for her dead brother, which is no less valuable as a
historical document than it is admirable in sentiment. An
Nadr Ibn el Harith was taken prisoner by Muhammad at
Uthail, after the battle of Bedr, and by his order put to death,
and through the verses of Kutaila you catch the revolt of
feeling with which the Prophet's pretensions were greeted by
those of his contemporaries who would not submit to them,
coupled with the necessary respect due to a man whose race
was as good as their own. " Oh camel rider I " she cries,

" Oh camel rider 1 Uthail, methinks, if thou speedest well,

shall lie before thee when breaks the fifth Dawn o'er thy road.
Take thou a word to a dead man there — and a greeting, sure,

but meet it is that the riders bring from friends afar —
From me to him, yea and tears unstanched, in a flood they flow

when he phes the well rope, and others choke me that stay
behind.
Raise clear thy voice that an Nadr may hear if thou call on him —

can a dead man hear ? Can he answer any that shouts his name ?
Day long the swords of his father's sons on his body played —

Ah God ! the bonds of a brother's blood that were severed there !
Helpless, a-weary, to death they led him, with fight foredone ;

short steps he takes with his fettered feet and his arms are bound.
Oh Muhammad ! sprung from a mother thou of a noble house,

and thy father too was of goodly stock when the kin is told.
Had it cost thee dear to have granted grace that day to him ?

yea, a man may pardon though anger bum in his bosom sore.
And the nearest he in the ties of kinship of all to thee,

and the fittest he, if thou loosedst any to be set free.
Ah, hadst thou taken a ransom, sure with the best of all

that my hand possessed I had paid thee, spending my utmost
store."

And on yet stronger wing the wild free spirit of the desert
rose in his breast who lay in ward at Mecca, and he sang of
love and death with a voice that will not be silenced :

" My longing cUmbs up the steep with the riders of El Yemen,

by their side, while my body Ues in Mecca a prisoner.
I marvelled as she came darkling to me and entered free,

while the prison door before me was bolted and surely barred.
She drew near and greeted me, then she rose and bade fareweU,

and when she turned my life well-nigh went forth with her.
Nay, think not that I am bowed with fear away from you,

or that I tremble before death that stands so nigh.
Or that my soul quakes at all before your threatening,

or that my spirit is broken by walking in these chains.

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 63

-But a longing has smitten my heart born of love for thee,
as it was in the days aforetime when that I was free.*'*

The agony of the captive, the imagined vision of the heart's
desire which no prison bars could exclude, then the fine pro-
test lest his foes should dream that his spirit faltered, and
the strong man's fearless memory of the passion that had
shaken his life and left his soul still ready to vanquish death
— there are few such epitomes of noble emotion. Bom and
bred on the soil of the desert, the singers of the Age of
ignorance have left behind them a record of their race that
richer and wiser nations will find hard to equal.

* I have borrowed Sir Charles Lyall's beautiful and most scholarly
translation of this and the preceding poem.

CHAPTER IV

Thehe is an Arabic proverb which says : "Hayyeh rubda wa
la daif mudha " — neither ash-grey snake nor mid-day guest.
We were careful not to make a breach in our Ynanners by out-
staying our welcome, and our camp was up before the sun.
lo wake in that desert dawn was like waking in the heart of
an opal. The mists lifting their heads out of the hollows, the
dews floating in ghostly wreaths from the black tents, were
shot through first with the faint glories of the eastern sky and
then with the strong yellow rays of the risen sun. I sent a
silver and purple kerchief to Fellah ul 'Isa, "for the little
son " who had played solemnly about the hearth, took grate-
ful leave of Namrud, drank a parting cup of coffee, and, the
old sheikh holding my stirrup, mounted and rode away with
Gablan. We climbed the Jebel el 'Alya and crossed the wide
summit of the range ; the landscape was akin to that of our
own English border country but bigger, the sweeping curves
more generous, the distances further away. The glorious
cold air intoxicated every sense and set the blood throbbing
— to my mind the saying about the Bay of Naples should
run differently. See the desert on a fine morning and die
— if you can. Even the stolid mules felt the breath of it
and raced across the spongy ground (" Mad ! the accursed
ones!") till their packs swung round and brought them
down, and twice we stopped to head them off and re-
load. The Little Heart, the highest peak of the Jebel Druze,
surveyed us cheerfully the while, glittering in its snow
mantle far away to the north.

At the foot of . the northern slopes of the 'Alya hills we
entered a great rolling plain like that which we had left to
the south. We passed many of those mysterious rujm which
start the fancy speculating on the past history of the land, and

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 65

{.resently we caught sight of the scattered encampments of
the Hassaniyyeh, who are good friends to the Da'ja and belong
to the same group of tribes. And here we spied two riders
coming across the plain and Gablan went out to greet them
and remained some time, in talk, and then returned with a
grave face. The dr-iy before, the very day before," while we
had been journeying peacefullj' from Tneib, four hundred horse-
men of the Sukhur and the Howeitat, leagued in evil, had
swept these plains,
surprised an outlying
group of the Beni
Hassan and carried
off the tents, to-
gether with two
thousand head of
cattle. It was al-
most a pity, J
thought, that we
had come a day too
late, but Gablan
looked graver still
at the suggestion,

and said that he arabs ridcno mardiIi'

would have been forced to join in the fray, yes, he
would even have left me, though I had been committed
to his charge, for the Da'ja were bound to help the Beni
Hassan against the Sukhur. And perhaps yesterday's
work would be enough to break the new-born truce be-
tween that powerful tribe and the allies of the 'Anazeh
and set the whole desert at war again. There was sorrow in
the tents of the Children of Hassan, We saw a man weeping
by the tent pole, with his head bowed in his hands, everything
he possessed having been swept from hin: As we rode we
talked much of ghazu (raid) and the riles that govern it.
The fortunes of the Arab are as varied ci those of a gambler
on the Stock Exchange. One day he is the richest man in
the desert, and next morning he may not have a single camel
foal to his name. He lives in a state of war, and even if the
surest pledges have beea exchanged with the neighbouring

66 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

tribes there is no certainty that a band of raiders from hun-
dreds of miles away will not descend on his camp in the night,
as a tribe unknown to Syria, the BeniAwajeh, fell, two years
ago, on the lands south-east of Aleppo, crossing three hundred
miles of desert, Marduf (tw6 on a camel) from their seat above
Baghdad, carrying off all the cattle and killing scores of
people. How many thousand years this state of things has
lasted, those who shall read the earliest records of the inner
desert will tell us, for it goes back to the first of them, but
in all the centuries the Arab has bought no wisdom from
experience. He is never safe, and yet he behaves as though
security were his daily bread. He pitches his feeble little
camps, ten or fifteen tents together, over a wide stretch of
undefended and indefensible country. He is too far from
his fellows to call in their aid, too far as a rule to gather the
horsemen together and follow after the raiders whose retreat
must be sufficiently slow, burdened with the captured flocks,
to guarantee success to a swift pursuit. Having lost all his
worldly goods, he goes about the desert and makes his plaint,
and one man gives him a strip or two of goats' hair cloth, and
another a coffee-pot, a third presents him with a camel, and
a fourth with a few sheep, till he has a roof to cover him and
enough animals to keep his family from hunger. There are
good customs among the Arabs, as Namrud said. So he
bides his time for months, perhaps for years, till at length
opportunity ripens, and the horsemen of his tribe with their
allies ride forth and recapture all the flocks that had been
carried off and more besides, and the feud enters on another
phase. The truth is that the ghazu is the only industry the
desert knows and the only game. As an industry it seems
to the commercial mind to be based on a false conception
of the laws of supply and demand, but as a game there is
niuch to be said for it. The spirit of adventure finds full
scope in it — you can picture the excitement of the night ride
across the plain, the rush of the mares in the attack, the
glorious (and comparatively innocuous) popping of rifles
and the exhilaration of knowing yourself a fine lellow as you
turn homewards with the spoil. It is the best sort of fan-
tasia, as they say in the desert, with a spice of danger behind

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 67

it. Not that the danger is alarmingly great : a considerable
amount of amusement can be got without much bloodshed,
and the '■■aiding Arab is seldom bent on killing. He never
lifts his hand against women and children, and if here and
there a man falls it is almost by accident, since who can be
sure of the ultimate destination of a rifle bullet once it is
embarked on its lawless course ? This is the Arab view of
the ghazu ; the Druzes look at it otherwise. For them it is
red war. They do not play the game as it should be plaved,
they go out to slay,
and they spare no
one. While they
have a grain of pow-
der in their flasks and
strength to pull the
trigger, they kill
every man, woman
and child that they
encounter.

Knowing the inde-
pendence of Arab * tbavellino encampment of the 'arEl
women and the freedom with which marriages are contracted
between different tribes of equal birth, I saw many romantic
possibilities of mingled love and hatred between the Montagues
and the Capulets. " Lo, on a sudden I loved her," says
'Antara, "though! had slain her kin." Gablan replied that
these difficult situations did indeed occur, and ended some-
times in a tragedy, but if the lovers would be content to wait,
some compromise could be arrived at, or they might be able
to marry during one of the brief but oft-recurring intervals of
truce. The real danger begins when blood feud is started
within the tribe itself and a man having murdered one of
his own people is cast out a homeless, kinless exile to shelter
with strangers or with foes. Such was Imr ul Kais, the lonely
outlaw, crying to the night : " Oh long night, wilt thou not
bring the dawn ? yet the day is no better than thou,"

A few miles further north the Hassaniyyeh encampments

. had not yet heard cf yesterday's misfortune, and we had the

pleasure of spreading the ill-news. Gablan rode up to every

68 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

group we passed and delivered his mind of its burden ; the
men in buckram multiplied as we went, and perhaps I had
been wrong in aoceptlng the four hundred of the original
statement, for they had had plenty of time to breed during
the twenty-four hours that had elapsed between their depar-
ture and our arrival. All the tents were occupied with pre-
parations not for war but for feasting. On the morrow fell

the great festival of the Mohammedan year, the Feast of
Sacrifice, when the pilgrims in Mecca slaughter their offerings
and True Believers at home follow their example. By every
tent there was a huge pile of thorns wherewith to roast the
camel or sheep next day, and the shirts of the tribe were
spread out to dry in the sun after a washing which, I have
reason to believe, takes place but once a year. Towards
sunset we reached a big encampment of the Beni Hassan,
where Gablan decided to spend the night. There was water
in a muddy pool near at hand and a good site for our tents
above the hollow in which the Arabs lay. None of the great
sheikhs were camped there and, mindful of Namrud's warnings,
I refused all invitations and spent the evening at home, watch-
ing the sunset and the kindling of the cooking fires and the

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 69

blue smoke that floated away into the twilight. The sacri-
ficial camel, in gorgeous trappings, grazed among my mules,
and after dark the festival was heralded by a prolonged letting
off of rifles. GabUn sat silent by the camp fire, his thoughts
busy with the merrymakings that were on foot at home.
It went sorely against the grain that he should be absent on
such a day. " How many horsemen," said he, " will aligiit

to-morrow at my father's tent ! and I shall not be there to
welcome them or to wish a good feast day to my little son ! "
We were off before the rejoicings had begun. I had no
desire to assist at the last moments of the camel, and moreover
we had a long day before us through country that was not
particularly safe. As far as my caravan was concerned, tiie
risk was small- I had a letter in my pocket from Fellah
ul 'Isa to Nasib cl Atrash, the Sheikh of Salkhad in the Jebel
Druze. " To the renowned and honoured sheikh, Nasib el
Atrash," it ran (I had heard my host dictate it to NamrCd
and seen him seal it with his seal), "the venerated, may (iod
prolong his existence ! We send you greetings, to j'on and
to all the people of Salkhad, and to your brother Jada'llah,
and to thfi son of your uncle Muhammad el Atrash in Umm

70 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

er Rumman, and to our friends in Imtain. And further,
there goes to you from us a lady of the most noble among the
English. And we greet Muhammada and our friends. . . .
&c., (here followed another list of names), and this is all that
is needful, and peace be with you." . And beyond this letter
I had the guarantee of my nationality, for the Druzes have
not yet forgotten our interference on their behalf in i860 ;
moreover I was acquainted with several of the sheikhs of the
Turshan, to which powerful family Nasib belonged. But
Gablan was in a different case, and he was fully conscious of
the ambiguity of his position. In spite of his uncle's visit to
the Mountain, he was not at all certain how the Druzes would
receive him ; he was leaving the last outposts of his allies,
and entering a border land by tradition hostile (he himself
had no acquaintance with it but that which he had gathered
on -raiding expeditions), and if he did not find enemies among
the Druzes he might well fall in with a scouring party of the
bitter foes of the Da'ja, the H^seneh or their like, who camp
east of the hills.

After an hour or two of travel, the character of the coun-
try changed completely : the soft soil of the desert came to an
end, and the volcanic rocks of the Hauran began. We rode
for some tims up a guUey of lava, left the last of the Hassan-
iyyeh tents in a little open space between some mounds, and
found ourselves on the edge of a plain that stretched to the
foot of the Jebel Druze in an unbroken expanse, completely
deserted, almost devoid of vegetation and strewn with black
volcanic stones It has been said that the borders of the
desert are like a rocky shore on which the sailor who navigates
deep waters with success may yet be wrecked when he at-
tempts to bring his ship to port. This was the landing which
we had to effect. Somewhere between us and the hills were
the ruins of Umm ej Jemal, where I hoped to get into touch
with the Druzes, but for the lite of us we could not tell where
they lay, the plain having just sufficient rise and fall to hide
them Now Umm ej Jemal has an evil name — I believe
mine was the second European camp that had ever been
pitched in it, the first having been that of a party of American
archtneologists who left a fortnight before I arrived — and

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 73

Gablan's evident anxiety enhanced its sinister reputation.
Twice he turned to me and asked whether it were necessary to *
camp there. I answered that he had undertaken to guide me
to Umm ej Jemal, and that there was no question but that I
should go, and the second time I backed my obstinacy by
pointing out that we must have water that night for the
animals, and that there was httle chance oi finding it except

V\i\I EJ JEMAL

In the cisterns of the ruined village. Thereupon 1 had out
my map, and after trying to guess what point on the blank
white paper we must have reached, I turned my caravan a
little to the west towards a low rise from whence we should
probably catch sight of our destination. Gablan took the
decision in good part and expressed regret that he could not
be of better service in directing us. He had been once in his
life to Umm ej Jemal, but it was at dead of night when he was
out raiding. He and his party had stopped for half an hour
to water their horses and had passed on eastward, returning
by another route. Yes, it had been a successful raid,
praise be to God ! and one of the first in which he
had engaged, Mikhail listened with indifference to our
deliberations, the muleteers were not consulted, but as we

74 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

set off again Hablb tucked his revolver more handily into his
belt.

We rode on. I was engaged in looking for the rasif, the
paved Roman road that runs from Kal'at ez Zerka straight
to Bosra, and also in wondering what I should do to protect
if necessary the friend and guide whose pleasant companion-
ship had enlivened our hours of travel and who should cer-
tainly come to ho harm while he was with us. As we drew
nearer to the rising ground we observed that it was crowned
with sheepfolds, and presently we could see men gathering
their flocks together and driving them behind the black walls,
their hurried movements betraying their alarm. We noticed
also some figures, whether mounted or on foot it was impossible
to determine, advancing on us from a hollow to the left, and
after a moment two puffs of smoke rose in front of them, and
we heard the crack of rifles.

Gablan turned to me with a quick gesture.

" Darabuna ! " he said. " They have fired on us."

I said aloud : " They are afraid," but to myself, *' We're
in for it."

Gablan rose in his stirrups, dragged his fur-lined cloak
from his shoulders, wound it round his left arm and waved it
above his head, and very slowly he and I paced forward to-
gether. Another couple of shots were fired, and still we rode
forward, Gablan waving his flag of truce. The firing ceased ;
it was nothing after all but the accepted greeting to strangers,
conducted with the customary levity of the barbarian. Our
assailants turned out to be two Arabs, grinning from ear to
ear, quite ready to fraternise with us as soon as they had
decided that we were not bent on sheep stealing, and most
willing to direct us to Umm ej Jemal. As soon as we had
rounded the tell we saw it in front of us, its black towers
and walls standing so boldly out of the desert that it was
impossible to believe it had been ruined and deserted for
thirteen hundred years. It was not till we came close that the
rents and gashes in the tufa masonry and the breaches in the
city wall were visible. I pushed forward and would have
ridden straight into the heart of the town, but Gablan caught
me up and laid his hand upon my bridle.

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 75

"I go first," he said. "Oh lady, you were commi.tted to
my charge."

And since he was the only person who incuired any risk
and was well aware of the fact, his resolution did him credit.

We clattered over the ruined wall, passed round the square
monastery tower which is the chief feature of the Mother of
Camels {such is
the meaning of
the Arabic name),
and rode into an
open place be-
tween empty
streets, and there
was no one to
fear and no sign
of life save that
offered by two
small black tents,
the inhabitants of
which greeted us
with enthusiasm,
and proceeded to
sell us milk and
eggs in the most
amicable fashion.
The Arabs who live at the foot of Hauran mountains are
called the Jebeliyyeh, the Arabs of the Hills, and they are
of no consideration, being but servants and shepherds to the
Druzes. In the winter they herd the flocks that are sent
down into the plain, and in the summer they are allowed
to occupy the uncultivated slopes with their own cattle.

I spent the hour of daylight that remained in examihing
the wonderful Nabatsean necropolis outside the walls. Mon-
sieur Dussaud began the work on it five years ago ; Mr.
Butler and Dr. Littmann, whose visit immediately preceded
mine, will be found to have continued it when their next
volumes are given to the world. Having seen what tombs
they had uncovered and noted several mounds that must
conceal others, I sent away my companions and wandered in

76 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

the dusk through the ruined streets of the town, into great
rooms and up broken stairs, till Gablan came and called me
in, saying that if a man saw something in a fur coat explor-
ing those uncanny places after dark, he might easily take the
apparition for a ghoul and shoot at it. Moreover, he wished
to ask me whether he might not return to Tneib. One of the
Arabs would guide us next day to-the first Druze village, and
Gablan would as soon come no nearer to the Mountain. I
agreed readily, indeed it was a relief not to have his safety
on my conscience. He received three napoleons for his
trouble and a warm letter of thanks to deliver to Fellah ul
'Isa, and we parted with many assurances that if God willed
we would travel together again.

The stony foot of the Jebel Ham an is strewn with villages
deserted since the Mohammedan invasion in the seventh cen-
tury. I visited two that lay not far from my path, Shabha and
Shabhiyyeh, and found them to be both of the same character
as Umm ej Jemal From afar they look like well-built
towns with square towers rising above streets of three-storied
houses. Where the walls have fallen they lie as they fell,
and no hand has troubled to clear away the ruins. Monsieur
de Vogue was the first to describe the architecture of the
Hauran ; his splendid volumes are still the principal source of
information. The dwelling-houses are built round a court
in which there is usually an outer stair leading to the upper
story. There is no wood used in their construction, even the
doors are of solid stone, turning on stone hinges, and the windows
of stone slabs pierced with open-work patterns. Sometimes
there are traces of a colonnaded portico, or the walls are
broken by a double window, the arches of which are supported
by a small column and a rough plain capital ; frequently the
lintels of the doors are adorned with a cross or a Christian
monogram, but otherwise there is little decoration. The
chambers are roofed with stone slabs resting on the back of
transverse arches. So far as can be said with any certainty,
Nabataean inscriptions and tombs are the oldest monuments
that have been discovered in the district ; they are followed
by many important remains of pagan Rome, but the
really flourishing period seems to have been the Christian.

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 77

After the Mohammadan invasion, which put an end to the
prosperity of the Hauran uplands, few of the villages were re-
inhabited, and when the Druzes came about a hundred and
fifty years ago, they found no settled population. They
made the Mountain their own, rebuilt and thereby destroyed
the ancient towns, and extended their lordship over the plains
to the south, though
they have not estab-
lished themselves in
the villages of that
debatable land which
remains a happy
hunting ground for
thearchfeologist. The
American expedition
will make good use of
the immense amount
of material that exists
there, and knowing
that the work had
been done by better
hands than mine, I
rolled up the measur-
ing tape and folded
the foot-rule. But I

could not so far over- sibiking camp

come a natural instinct as to cease from copying inscriptions,
and the one or two {they were extremely few) that had escaped
Dr. Littmann's vigilant eye and come by chance to me were
made over to him when we met in Damascus.

To our new guide, Fendi, fell the congenial task of posting
me up in the gossip of the Mountain. Death had been busy
among the great family of the Turshan during the past live
years, t Faiz el Atrash, Sheikh of Kreyeh, was gone, poisoned
said some, and a week or two before my arrival the most
renowned of all the leaders of the Druzes, Shibly Beg el
Atrash, had died of a mysterious and lingering illness — poison
again, it was whispered. There was this war and that on
hand, a terrible raid of the Arabs of the Wady Sirhan to be

78 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

avenged, and a score with the Sukhur to be settled, but on the
whole there was prosperity, and as much peace as a Druze
would wish to enjoJ^ The conversation was interrupted
by a little shooting at rabbits lying asleep in the sun, not a
gentlemanly sport perhaps, but one that helped to fill and to
diversify the pot. After a time I left the mules and Fendi to
go their own way, and taking Mikhail with me, made a long
circuit to visit the ruined towns. We were just finishing
lunch under a broken wall, well separated from the rest of the
party, when we saw two horsemen approaching us across the
plain. We swept up the remains of the lunch and mounted
hastily, feeling that any greeting they might accord us was
better met in the saddle. They stopped in front of us and
gave us the salute, following it with an abrupt question as
to where we were going. I answered : " To Salkhad, to
Nasib cl Atrash," and they let us pass without further re-
mark. They were not Druzes, for they did not wear the
Druze turban, but Christians from Kreyeh, where there is a
large Christian community, riding down to Umm ej Jemal to
visit the winter quarters of their flocks, so said Fendi, whom
they had passed a mile ahead. Several hours before we
reached the present limits of cultivation, we saw the signs of
ancient agriculture in the shape of long parallel lines of stones
heaped aside from earth that had once been fruitful. They
looked like the ridge and furrow of a gigantic meadow, and
like the ridge and furrow they are almost indelible, the mark
of labour that must have ceased with the Arab invasion.
At the foot of the first spur of the hills, Tell esh Shih (it is
called after the grey-white Shih plant which is the best pas-
turage for sheep), we left the unharvested desert and entered
the region of ploughed fields — we left, too, the long clean levels,
of the open wilderness and were caught fetlock deep in the
mud of a Syrian road. It led us up the hill to Umm er Rum-
man, the Mother of Pomegranates, on the edge of the lowest
plateau of the Jebel Druze, as bleak a little muddy spot as
you could hope to see. I stopped at the entrance of the
village, and asked a group of Druzes where I should find a
camping ground, and they directed me to an extremely
dirty place below the cemetery, saying there was no other

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 79

where I should not spoil the crops or the grass, though the
crops, Heaven save the mark ! were as yet below ground,
and the grass consisted of a few brown spears half covered
with melting snow. I could not entertain the idea of pitching
tents so near the graveyard, and demanded to be directed to
the house of Muhammad el Atrash, Sheikh of Umm er Rum-
man. This prince of the Turshan was seated upon his roof,
engaged in directing certain agricul-
tural operations that were being
carried forward in the slough below.
Long years had made him shapeless
of figure and the effect was enhanced
by the innumerable garments in
which the winter cold had forced him
to wrap his (at old body. I came as
near as the mud would allow, and
shouted :

" Peace be upon you, oh Sheikh ! "

" And upon you peace ! " he bawled
in answer.

" Where in your village is there a
dry spot for a camp ? "

The sheikh confen-ed at the top ol
his voice with his henchmen in the muhammad el atbaeh
mud, and finally replied that he did not know, by God !
While I was wondering where to turn, a Druze stepped
forward and announced that he could show me a place
outside the town, and the sheikh, much relieved by the
shifting of responsibility, gave me a loud injunction to go
in peace, and resumed his occupations.

My guide was a young man with the clear cut features
and the sharp intelligent expression of his race. He was
endowed, too, like all his kin, with a lively curiosity, and as
he hopped from side to side of the road to avoid the pools
of mud and slush, he had from me all my story, whence I
came and whither I was going, who were my friends in the
Jebel Druze and what my father's name — very different
this from the custom of the Arabs, with whom it is an essen-
tial point of good breeding never to demand more than the

8o THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

stranger sees fit to impart. In At Tabari's history there is a
fine tale of a man who sought refuge with an Arab sheikh.
He stayed on, and the sheikh died, and his son who ruled in
his stead advanced in years, and at length the grandson of the
original host came to his father and said : " Who is the man
ivho dwells with us ? " And the father answered : " My
8on, in my father's time he came, and my father grew old and
died, and he stayed on under my protection, and I too have
grown old ; but in all these years we have never asked him
why he sought us nor what is his name. Neither do thou
ask." Yet I rejoiced to find myself once more among the
trenchant wits and the searching kohl-blackened eyes of the
Mountain, where every question calls for a quick retort or a
brisk parry, and when my interlocutor grew too inquisitive I
had only to answer :

" Listen, oh you ! I am not ' thou,' but ' Your Ex-
cellency,' " and he laughed and understood and took the
rebuke to heart.

There are many inscriptions in Umm er Rumman, a few
Nabataean and the rest Cufic, proving that the town on the
shelf of the hills was an early settlement and that it was one of
those the Arabs re-occupied for a time after the invasion.
A delighted crowd of little boys followed me from house to
house, tumbling over one another in their eagerness to point
out a written stone built into a wall or laid in the flooring
about the hearth. In one house a woman caught me by the
arm and implored me to heal her husband. The man was
lying in a dark corner of the windowless room, with his face
wrapped in filthy bandages, and when these had been removed
a horrible wound was revealed, the track of a buUet that
had passed through the cheek and shatt'^.red the jaw, I could
do nothing but give him an antiseptic, 3ind adjure the woman
to wash the wound and keep the wrappings clean, and above
all not to let him drink the medicine, though I felt it would
make small odds which way he used it, Death had him so
surely by the heel. This was the first of the long roll of
sufferers that must pass before the eyes and catch despair-
ingly at the sympathies of every traveller in wild places.
Men and women afflicted with ulcers and terrible sores, with

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 81

fevers and rheumatisms, children crippled from their birth,
the blind and the old, there are none who do not hope that the
unmeasured wisdom of the West may find them a remedy.
You stand aghast at the depths of human misery and at your
own helplessness.

The path of archaeology led me at last to the sheikh's
door, and I went in to pay him an official visit. He was most
hospitably inclined now that the business of the day was over ;
we sat together in the mak'ad, the audience room, a dark and
dirty sort of out-house, with an iron stove in the centre of it,
and discussed the Japanese War and desert ghazus and other
topics of the day, while Selman, the sheikh's son, a charming
Doy of sixteen, made us coffee. Muhammad is brother-in-
law to Shibly and to Yahya Beg el Atrash, who had been my
first host five years before when I had escaped to his village
of 'Areh from the Turkish Mudir at Bosra, and Selman is
the only son of his father's old age and the only descendant
of the famous 'Areh house of the Turshan, for Shibly died and
Yahya lives childless. The boy walked back with me to my
camp, stepping lightly through the mud, a gay and eager
figure touched with the air of distinction that befits one who
comes of a noble stock. He had had no schooling, though there
was a big Druze maktab at Kreyeh, fifteen miles away, kept
by a Christian of some learning.

" My father holds me so precious," he explained, *' that
he will not let me leave his side."

'* Oh Selman," I began

" Oh God ! " he returned, using the ejaculation customary
to one addressed by name.

" The minds of the Druzes are like fine steel, but what is
steel until it is beaten into a sword blade ? "

Selman answered : " My uncle Shibly could neither read
nor write."

I said : " The times are changed. The house of the
Turshan will need trained wits if it would lead the Mountain
as it did before."

But that headship is a thing of the past Shibly is dead
and Yahya childless, Muhammad is old and Selman unde-
veloped, Faiz has left four sons but they are of no repute.

82 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

Nasib is cunning but very ignorant, there is Mustafa at Im-
tain, who passes for a worthy man of little intelligence, and
Hamud at Sweida, who is distinguished mainly for his wealth.
The ablest man among the Druzes is without doubt Abu
Tellal of Shahba, and the most enlightened Sheikh Muham-
mad en Nassar.

The night was bitterly cold. My thermometer had been
broken, so that the exact temperature could not be registered,
but every morning until we reached Damascus the water in
the cup by my bedside was a solid piece of ice, and one night a
little tumbling stream outside the camp was frozen hard and
silent. The animals and the muleteers were usually housed
in a khan while the frost lasted. Muhammad the Druze, who
had returned to his original name and faith, disappeared
the moment camp was pitched, and spent the night enjoying
the hospitality of his relations. "For," said Mikhail sar-
castically, " every man who can give him a meal he reckons
to be the son of his uncle."

I was obliged to delay my start next morning in order to
profit by the sheikh's invitation to breakfast at a very elastic
nine o'clock — two hours after sunrise was what was said, and
who knows exactly when it may suit that luminary to
appear ? It was a pleasant party. We discussed the war
in Yemen in all its bearings — theoretically, for I was the only
person who had any news, and mine was derived from a Weekly
Times a month old — and then Muhammad questioned me
as to why Europeans looked for inscriptions.

" But I think I know," he added. " It is that they may
restore the land to the lords of it."

I assured him that the latest descendants of the former
owners of the Hauran had been dead a thousand years, and
he listened politely and changed the subject with the baffled
air of one who cannot get a true answer.

The young man who had shown us our camping ground
rode with us to Salkhad, saying he had business there and
might as well have company by the way. His name was
Saleh ; he was of a clerkly family, a reader and a scribe. I
was so tactless as to ask him whether he were 'akil, initiated
— the Druzes are divided into the initiated and the uninitiated.

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 83

but the line of demarcation does not follow that of social
pre-eminence, since most of the Turshan are uninitiated. He
gave me a sharp look, and replied :

" What do you think ? " and I saw my error and dropped
the subject.

But Saleh was not one to let slip any opportunity of gain-
ing information. He
questioned me acutely
on our customs, down
to the laws of mar-
riage and divorce. He
was vastly enter-
tained at the English
rule that the father
should pay a man for
marrying his daughter
(so he interpreted
the habit of giving
her a marriage por-
tion), and we laughed
together over the

absurdity of the arrangement. He was anxious to know
Western views as to the creation of the world and the
origin of matter, and I obliged him with certain heterodox
opinions, on which he seized with far greater lucidity than that
with which they were offered. We passed an agreeable morn-
ing, in spite of the mud and boulders of the road. At the
edge of the snow wreaths a little purple crocus had made
haste to bloom, and a starry white garlic — the Mountain
is very rich in Spring flowers. The views to the south over
the great plain we had crossed were enchanting ; to the north
the hills rose in unbroken slopes of snow, Kuleib, the Little
Heart, looking quite AlpHie with its frosty summit half veiled
in mist. Two hours alter noon we reached Salkhad, the
first goal of our journey.

CHAPTER V

Salcah, the city of King Og in Bashan, must have been a
fortified place from the beginning of history. The modern
village clusters round the base of a small volcano, on the top
of which, built in the very crater, is the ruined fortress. This
fortress and its predecessors in the crater formed the outpost
of the Hauran Mountains against the desert, the outpost of
the earliest civiUsation against the earliest marauders. The
ground drops suddenly to the south and east, and, broken
only by one or two volcanic mounds in the immediate neigh-
bourhood, settles itself down into the long levels that reach
Euphrates stream ; straight as an arrow from a bow the
Roman road runs out from Salkhad into the desert in a line
that no modem traveller has followed beyond the first two or
three stages. The caravan track to Nejd begins here and
passes by Kaf and Ethreh along the Wadi Sirhan to Jof
and Hail, a perilous way, though the Blunts pursued it suc-
cessfully and'Euting after them. Euting's description of it,
done with aU the learning and the minute observation of the
German, is the best we have. Due south of Salkhad there is an
interesting ruined fort, Kal'at el Azrak, in an oasis where
there are thickets fuU of wild boar : Dussaud visited it and
has given an excellent account of his journey. No doubt
there is more to be found still ; the desert knows many a
story that has not yet been told, and at Salkhad it is diffi-
cult to keep your feet from turning, south, so invitingly
mysterious are those great plains.

I went at once to the house of Nasib el Atrash and
presented Fellah ul 'Isa's letter. Nasib is a man of twenty-
seven, though he looks ten years older, short in stature
and sleek, with shrewd features of a type essentially Druze
and an expression that is more cunning than pleasant. He

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 85

received me in his raak'ad, where he was sitting with his
brother Jada'llah, a tall young man with a handsome but
rather stupid face, who greeted me with " Bon jour," and
then relapsed into silence, having come to the end of all the
French he linew, Just as he had borrowed one phrase from a
European tongue, so he had borrowed one article of dress from
European wardrobes : a high sticlt-up collar was what he had
selected, and It went strangely with his Arab clothes. There

were a few Druzes drinking coffee in the mak'ad, and one other
whom I instantly diagnosed as an alien. He turned out to be
the Mudir el Mai of the Turkish government — I do not know
what his exact functions are, but his title implies him to be
an agent of the Treasury. Salkhad is one of three villages in
Jebel Druze (the others being Sweida and 'Areh) where the
Sultan has a Kaimakam and a telegraph station. Yusef
EtEendi, Kairaakim, and Milhcm lliin, Mudir el Mai, were
considerably surprised when I turned up from the desert
without warning or permission ; they despatched three tele-
grams daily to the Vali of Damascus, recounting all that I did
and said, and though I was on the best of terms with both of
them, finding indeed Milhem to be by far the most intelligent
and agreeable man in the village, I fear I caused them much
perturbation of mind. And here let me say that my ex-
perience of Turkish officials leads me to count them among the

86 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

most polite and obliging of men. If you come to them with

the proper certificates there is nothing they will not do to

help you ; when they stop you it is because they are obliged

to obey orders from higher authorities; and even when you

set aside, as from time to time you must, refusals that are

always couched in language conciliatory to a fault, they

conceal their just annoyance and bear

you no ill will for the trouble you

have caused them. The government

agents at Salkhad occupy an uneasy

position. It is true that there has

been peace in the Mountain for the

past five years, but the Druzes are a

slippery race and one quick to take

offence. Milhem understood them

well, and his appointment to the new

post of Salkhad is a proof of the

Vali's genuine desire to avoid trouble

in the future. He had been at

Sweida for many years before he came

to Salkhad ; he was a Christian, and

therefore not divided from the Druzes

by the unbridged gulf of hatred that

lies between them and Islam, and he

NAsiB EI, ATRASH ^^^ j^jj^ g^^gj-g ^^^^ Turkish lule in

the Jebel Hauran depends on how little demand is made on a

people nominally subject and practically independent. Yiisef

Effendi was not far behind him in the strength of his conviction

on this head, and he had the best of reasons for realising how

shadowy his authority was. There are not more than two

hundred Turkish soldiers in all the Mountain ; the rest of

the Ottoman forces are Druze zaptiehs, well pleased to wear

a government uniform and draw government pay, on the

rare occasions when it reaches them, though they can hardly

be considered a trustworthy guard if serious differences arise

between their own people and the Sultan. To all outward

appearance Nasib and his brother were linked by the closest

bonds of friendship with the Kaimakam ; they were for ever

sitting in his mak'ad and drinking his coffee, but once when

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 87

we happened to be alone together, YCsef Effendi said patheti-
cally in his stilted Turkish Arabic : " I never know what
they are doing : they look on me as an enemy. And if they
wish to disobey orders from Damascus, they cut the tele-
graph wire and go their own way. What power have I to
prevent them ? "

Nevertheless there are signs that the turbulent people of
the Mountain
have turned
their minds
to other
matters than
war with the
Osmanli, and
among the
chief of these
are the steam
mills that
grind the corn
of Salkhad
and a few
villages be-
sides. A man
who owns a

steam mill is * croup of druzejj

pledged to maintain the existing order. He has built it at
considerable expense, he does not wish to see it wrecked by an
invading Turkisli army and his capital wasted ; on the contrary,
he hopes to make money from it, and his restless eneigies find
a new and profitable outlet in that direction. My impression
is that peace rests on a much firmer basis than it did five
years ago, and that the Ottoman government has not been
slow to learn the lessons of the last war— if only the Vali of
Damascus could have known how favourable an opinion his
recent measures would force on the mind of the intriguing
Englishwoman, he might have spared his telegraph clerks
several hours' work.

There could scarcely have been a better example of the
freedom with which the Druzes control their own affairs than

88 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

was offered by an incident that took place on the very evening
of my arrival. It has already been intimated on the authority
of Fendi that the relations between the Mountain and the
Desert were fraught with the usual possibilities of martial
incident, and we had not Spent an afternoon in Salkhad with-
out discovering that the great raid that had occurred some
months previously was the topic that chiefly interested Nasib
and his brother. Not that they spoke of it in their con-
versations with me, but they listened eagerly when we told of
the raid on the Hassaniy/eh and the part the Sukhur had
played in it, and they dr3w from us all we knew or conjec-
tured as to the present camping grounds of the latter tribe,
how far the raiders had come, and in which direction re-
treated. The muleteers overheard men whispering at the
street comers, and their whispers were of warlike preparations ;
the groups round Mikhail's fire, ever a centre of social ac-
tivity, spoke of injuries that could not be allowed to pass
xmnoticed, and one of the many sons of Muhammad's uncle
had provided that famished Beyrouti with a lunch flavoured
with dark hints of a league between the Wadi Sirhan and the
Beni Sakhr Which must be nipped in the bud ere it had as-
sumed alarming proportions. The wave of the ghazu can
hardly reach as far as Salkhad itself, but the harm is done
long before it touches that point, especially in the winter
when every four-footed creature, except the mare necessary
for riding, is far away in the southern plain.

My camp was pitched in a field outside the town at the
eastern foot of the castle hill. The slopes to the north were
deep in snow up to the ruined walls of the fortress, and even
where we lay there were a few detached snowdrifts glittering
under the full moon. I had just finished dinner, and was
debating whether it were too cold to write my diary, when a
sound of savage singing broke upon the night, and from the
topmost walls of the castle a great flame leapt up into the
sky. It was a beacon kindled to tell the news of the coming
raid to the many Druze villages scattered over the plain
below, and the sgng was a call to arms. There was a Druze
zaptieh sitting by my camp fire ; he jumped up and gazed
first at me and then at the red blaze above us. I said :

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 91

" Is there permission to my going up ? "
He answered : " There is no refusal. Honour us."
We climbed together over the half frozen mud, and by the
snowy northern side of the volcano, edged our way in the dark-
ness round the castle walls where the lava ashes gave beneath
our feet, and came out into the full moonlight upon the wildest
scene that eyes could see. A crowd of Druzes, young men
and boys, stood at the edge of the moat on a narrow shoulder
of the hill. They were all armed with swords and knives and
they were shouting phrase by phrase a terrible song. Each
line of it was repeated twenty times or more until it seemed
to the listener that it had been bitten, as an acid bites the brass,
onto the intimate recesses of the mind.

** Upon them, upon them ! oh Lord our God ! that the foe may fall

in swathes before our swords !
Upon them, upon them ! that our spears may drink at their hearts !
Let the babe leave his mother's breast !
Let the young man arise and be gone !
Upon them, upon them ! oh Lord our God ! that our swords may

drink at their hearts. ..."

So they sang, and it was as though the fury of their anger
would never end, as though the castle walls would never
cease from echoing their interminable rage and the night
never again know silence, when suddenly the chant stopped
and the singers drew apart and formed themselves into a
circle, every man holding his neighbours by the hand. Into
the circle stepped three young Druzes with bare swords, and
strode round the ring of eager boys that enclosed them.
Before each in turn they stopped and shook their swords
and cried :

" Are you a good man ? Are you a true man ? "

And each one answered with a shout :

"Ha! ha!"

The moonlight fell on the dark faces and glittered on the
quivering blades, the thrill of martial ardour passed from
hand to clasped hand, and earth cried to heaven : War ! red
war !

And then one of the three saw me standing in the circle,
and strode up and raised his sword above his head, as though
nation saluted nation.

92 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

" Lady ! " he said, " the English and the Druze are one."

I said : " Thank God ! we, too, are a fighting race."

Indeed, at that moment there seemed no finer thing than
to go out and kill your enemy.

And when this swearing in of warriors was over, we ran
down the hill under the moon, still holding hands, and I,
seeing that some were only children not yet full grown, said
to the companion whose hand chance had put iji mine :

" Do all these go out with you ? "

He answered : " By God ! not all. The ungrown boys
must stay at home and pray to God that their day may soon
come."

When they reached the entrance of the town, the Druzes
leapt on to a flat house roof, and took up their devilish song.
The fire had burnt out on the castle walls, the night struck
suddenly cold, and I began to doubt whether if Milhem and
the Vali of Damascus could see me taking part in a demon-
stration against the Sukhur they would believe in the inno-
cence of my journey ; so I turned away into the shadow and
ran down to my tents and became a European again, bent on
peaceful pursuits and unacquainted with the naked primitive
passions of mankind.

We had certain inquiries to make concerning our journey,
and stores to lay in before we set out for the eastern side of
the Mountain, where there are no big villages, and therefore
we spent two days at Salkhad. The great difficulty of the
commissariat is barley for the animals. There had been
enough for our needs at Umm er Rumman, but there was
none at Salkhad ; it is always to be got at Sweida, which is
the chief post of the Turkish government, but that was far
away across the hills, and we decided to send down to Imteiu,
the path thither being bare of snow. It is worth recording
that in the winter, when, all the flocks are several hours away
in the plain, it is impossible to buy a sheep in the Mountain,
and the traveller has to make shift with such scraggy chickens
as he may find. The want of foresight which had left our
larder so ill-furnished affected Mikhail considerably, for he
prided himself on the roasting of a leg of mutton, and he
asked me how it was that all the books I had with me had

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 93

not hinted at the absence of the animal that could supply
that delicacy. I answered that the writers of these works
seemed to have been more concerned with Roman remains
than with such weighty matters as roasts and stews, whereat
he said firmly :

" When your Excellency writes a book, you will not say :
Here there is a beautiful church and a great castle.' The

gentry can see that for themselves. But you shall say :
' In this village there are no hens.' Then they will know
from the begiiming what sort of country it is."

The first day of my visit I spent with Nasib, watching
him give orders for the grinding of the com needed for the
coming military expedition (to which we sedulously avoided
any allusion), photographing him and the notables of his
village, and lunching with him in his mak'ad on gritty brown-
paper-Uke bread and dibs, a kmd of treacle made from boiled
grape juice, and a particularly nasty sort of soup of sour milk
with scraps of fat mixed in it—kirk the Druzes call it and hold it
in an unwarrantable esteem. In the afternoon Nasib was riding
some ten miles to the south, to settle a dispute that had arisen
between two of his villages, and he invited me to accompany

94 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

him ; but I thought that there were probably other matters
on hand, in which it might be awkward if a stranger were to
assist, and I compromised by agreeing to go with him for an
hour and turn aside to visit a shrine on top of a tell, the Weli
of El Khudr, who is no other than our St. George. Nasib
rode out in style with twenty armed men by his side, himself
arrayed in a long mantle of dark blue cloth embroidered
in black, with a pale blue handkerchief tucked into the folds
of the white turban that encircled his tarbush. The caval-
cade looked very gallant, each man wrapped in a cloak and
carrying his rifle across his knees. These rifles were handed to
me one by one that I might read the lettering on them. They
were of many different dates and origins, some antiquated
pieces stolen from Turkish soldiers, the most French arid
fairly modern, while a few came from Egypt and were marked
with V.R. and the broad arrow. Nasib rode with me for a
time and catechised me on my social status, whether I would
ride at home with the King of England, and what was the extent
of my father's wealth. His curiosity was not entirely without
a motive ; the Druzes are always hoping to find some very
rich European whose sympathies they could engage, and
who would finance and arm them if another war were to
break out with the Sultan ; but so contemptuous was he of the
modest competence which my replies revealed, that I was
roused to ask subsequently, by methods more tactful than
those of Nasib, what was wealth in the Mountain. The
answer was that the richest of the Turshan, Hamud of Sweida,
had an income of about 5000 napoleons. Nasib himself was
not so well off. He had some 1000 napoleons yearly. Probably
it comes to him mainly in kind ; all revenues are derived
from land, and vary considerably with the fortunes of the
agricultural year. The figures given me were, I should think,
liberal, and depended on a reckoning according with the best
harvest rather than with the mean.

Presently Nasib fell behind and engaged in a whispered
conversation with an old man who was his chief adviser,
while the others crowded round me and told me tales of the
desert and of great ruins to the south, which they were pre-
pared to show me if I would stay with them. At the foot

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 95

of the tell we met a group of horsemen waiting to impart to
Nasib some important news about the Arabs. _ Mikhail and I
stood aside, having seen our host look doubtfully at us out
of the comers of his eyes. That the tidings were not good
was all we heard, and no one could have learnt even that from
Nasib's crafty unmoved face and eyes concealed beneath

I OKVZK vLovcttKor

the lids as if he wished to make sure that they should not
reveal a single flash of his thoughts. Here we left him, to
his evident relief, and rode up the tell. Now there is never a
prominent hill in the Jebel Druze but it bears a sanctuary on
its summit, and the building is always one of those early monu-
ments of the land that date back to the times before Druze
or Turk came into it. What is their history ? ^ Were they
erected to Nabataan gods of rock and hiU, to Drusara and
Allat and the pantheon of the Semitic inscriptions whom
the desert worshipped with sacrifice at the Ka'abah and on
many a solitary mound ? If this be so the old divinities
still bear sway under changed names, still smell the blood of
goafs and sheep sprinkled on the black doorposts of their
dwellings, still hear the prayers of pilgrims carrying green

96 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

boughs and swathes of flowers. As at the Well of El Khudr,
there is always in the interior of the sanctuary an erection
like a sarcophagus, covered with shreds of coloured rags., and
when you lift the rags and peer beneath you find some queer
block of tufa, worn smooth with libations and own brother
to the Black Stone at Mecca. Near at hand there is a stone
basin for water — the water was iced over that day, and the
snow had drifted in through the stone doors and was melting
through the roof, so that it lay in muddy pools on the floor.

The next day was exceedingly cold, with a leaden sky
and a bitter wind, the forerunner of snow. Milhem Ilian
came down to invite me to lodge with him, but I refused,
fearing that I should feel the temperature of my tent too
icy after his heated room. He stayed some time and I took
the opportunity of discussing with him my plan of riding out
into the Safa, the volcanic waste east of the Jebel Druze.
He was not at all encouraging, indeed he thought the pro-
ject impossible under existing conditions, for it seemed that
the Ghiath, the tribe that inhabits the Safa, were up in arms
against the Government. They had waylaid and robbed the
desert post that goes between Damascus and Baghdad, and
were expecting retribution at the hands of the Vali. If therefore
a small escort of zaptiehs were to be sent in with me they would
assuredly be cut to pieces. Milhem agreed, however, that it
might be possible to go in alone with the Druzes though any-
thing short of an army of soldiers would be useless, and he
promised to give me a letter to Muhammad en Nassar, Sheikh
of Saleh, whom he described as a good friend of his and a man
of influence and judgment. The Ghiath are in the same posi-
tion with regard to the Druzes as are the Jebeliyyeh ; they can-
not afford not to be on good terms with the Mountain, since
they are dependent on the high pasturages during the summer.

Towards sunset I returned Milhem's visit. His room was
full of people, including Nasib newly returned from his
expedition. They made me tell them of my recent experiences
in the desert, and I found that all my friends were counted as
foes by the Druzes and that they have no allies save the
Ghiath and the Jebeliyyeh — the Sherarat, the Da'ja, the
Beni Hassan, there was a score of blood against them all.

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 99

In the desert the word gdm, foe, is second to none save only
that of daify guest, but in the Mountain it comes easily first.
I said :

'* Oh Nasib, the Druzes are like those of whom Kureyt
ibn Uneif sang when he said : * A people who when evil
bares its teeth against them, fly out to meet it in companies
or alone.' "

The sheikh's subtle countenance relaxed for a second,
but the talk was drifting too near dangerous subjects, and he
rose shortly afterwards and took his leave. His place was
filled by new comers (Milhem*s coffee-pots must be kept
boiling from dawn till late at night), and presently one entered
whom they all rose to salute. He was a Kurdish Agha, a
fine old man with a white moustache and a clean-shaven
chin, who comes down from Damascus from time to time on
some business of his own. Milhem is a native of Damascus,
and had much to ask and hear ; the talk left desert topics
and swung round to town dwellers and their ways and views.

" Look you, your Excellencies," said a man who was
making coffee over the brazier, " there is no religion in the
towns as there is in country places."

"Yes," pursued Milhem —

"May God make it Yes upon you!" ejaculated the Kurd.

" May God requite you, oh Agha ! . You may find men
in the Great Mosque at Damascus at the Friday prayers and
a few perhaps at Jerusalem, but in Beyrout and in Smyrna
the mosques are empty and the churches are empty. There
is no religion any more."

" My friends," said the Agha, " I will tell you the reason.
In the country men are poor and they want much. Of whom
should they ask it but of God ? There is none other that
is compassionate to the poor save He alone. But in the
towns they are rich, they have got all they desire, and why
should they pray to God if they want nothing ? The lady
laughs — is it not so among her own people ? "

I confessed that there was very little difference in this
matter between Europe and Asia and presently left the
party to pursue their coffee drinking and their conversation
without me.

loo THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

Late at night some one came knocking at my tent and
a woman's voice cried to me :

" Lady, lady ! a mother's heart (are not the EngHsh
merciful ?) listen to the sorrow of a mother's heart and take
this letter to my son ! "

I asked the unseen suppliant where her son was to be found.

" In Tripoli, in Tripoli of the West. He is a soldier and
an exile, who came not back with the others after the war.
Take this letter, and send it by a sure hand from Damascus,
for there is no certainty in the posts of Salkhad."

I unfastened the tent and took the letter, she crying the
while :

" The wife of Nasib told me that you were generous. A
mother's heart, you understand, a mother's heart that mourns!"

So she departed weeping, and I sent the mysterious letter
by the English post from Beyrout, but whether it ever reached
Tripoli of the West and the Druze exile we shall not know.

The Kaimakam came out to see us off next morning and
provided us with a Druze zaptieh to show us the way to Saleh.
The wind was searchingly cold, and the snow was reported to
lie very deep on the hills, for which reason we took the lower
road by Orman, a village memorable as the scene of the out-
break of the last war. Milhem had entrusted my guide, Yusef ,
with the mail that had just come in to Salkhad ; it consisted
of one letter only, and that was for a Christian, an inhabitant
of Orman, whom we met outside the village. It was from
Massachusetts, from one of his three sons who had emigrated
to America and were all doing well, praise be to God ! They
had sent him thirty liras between them the year before : he
bubbled over with joyful pride as we handed him the letter
containing fresh news of them. At Orman the road turned
upwards — I continue to call it a road for want of a name bad
enough for it. It is part of the Druze system of defence that
there shall be no track in the Mountain wide enough for two
to go abreast or smooth enough to admit of any pace beyond
a stumbling walk, and it is the part that is the most success-
fully carried out. We were soon in snow, half melted, half
frozen, concealing the holes in the path but not firm enough
to prevent the animals from breaking through into them.

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN loi

Occasionally there were deep drifts on which the mules em-
barked with the utmost confidence only to fall midway and
scatter their packs, while the horses plunged and reared till
they almost unseated us. Mikhail, who was no rider, bit the
slush several times. The makers of the Palestine Exploration
map have aUowed
■ their fancy to
play freely over
the eastern slopes
of the Jebel
Druze. Hills
have hopped
along for miles,
and villages have
crossed ravines
and settled them-
selves on the op-
posite banks, as,
for instance, Abu
Zrcik, which
stands on the left
bank of the Wadi
Rajil, though the
map places it on
the right. At the
time it all seemed
to lit in with the

general malevo- '^^^ village gateway, habran

lence of that day's journey, and our misery culminated
when we entered on an interminable snow field swept by a
blizzard of cutting sleet. At the dim end of it, quite un-
approachably far away, we could just see through the sleet
the slopes on which Saleh stands, but as we plodded on mile
after mile (it was useless to attempt to ride on our stumb-
ling animals and far too cold besides) we gradually came
nearer, and having travelled seven hours to accomplish a
four hours' march, we splashed and waded late in the after-
noon though the mounds of slush and pools of water that did
duty as streets. There was not a dry place in all the village.

102 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

and the snow v/as falling heavily ; clearly there was nothing to
be done but to beat at the door of Muhammad en Nassar, who
has an honoured reputation for hospitality, and I made the
best of my way up steps sheeted with ice to his mak'ad.

If Providence owed us any compensation for the discom-
forts of the day, it paid us, or at least it paid me, full measure
and running over, by the enchanting evening that I spent in
the sheikh's house. Muhammad en Nassar is a man full of

• • •

years and wisdom who has lived to see a large family of sons
and nephews grow up round him, and to train their quick
wits by his own courteous and gracious example. All the
Druzes are essentially gentlefolk ; but the house of the sheikhs
of Saleh could not be outdone in good breeding, natural and
acquired, by the noblest of the aristocratic races, Persian
or Rajputs, or any others distinguished beyond Iheir fellows.
Milhem's letter was quite unnecessary to ensure me a wel-
come ; it was enough that I was cold and hungry and an
Englishwoman. The fire in the iron stove was kindled, my
wet outer garments taken from me, cushions and carpets
spread on the divans under the sheikh's directions, and all
the band of his male relations, direct and collateral, dropped
in to enliven the evening. We began well. I knew that
Oppenheim had taken his escort from Saleh when he went
into the Safa, and I happened to have his book with me — how
often had I regretted that a wise instinct had not directed
my choice towards Dussaud's two admirable volumes, rather
than to Oppenheim's ponderous work, packed with infor-
mation that was of little use on the present journey ! The
great merit of the book lies in the illustrations, and fortunately
there was among them a portrait of Muhammad en Nassar
with his two youngest children. Having abstracted Kie-
pert's maps, I was so generous as to present the tome to one
of the family who had accompanied the learned German
upon his expedition. It has remained at Saleh to be a joy
and a glory to the sheikhs, who will look at the pictures and
make no attempt to grapple with the text, and the hole in
my bookshelves is well filled by the memory of their pleasure.
We talked without ceasing during the whole evening,
with a brief interval when an excellent dinner was brought

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN loj

in. The old sheikh, Yusef the zaptieh, and I partook of it

together, and the eldest of the nephews and cousins finished
up the ample remains. The topic that interested them most
at Saleh was the Japanese War— indeed it was in that
direction that conversation invariably turned in the Moun-
tain, the reason being that the Druzes beUeve the Japanese
to belong to their own race. The line of argument which has

led them to this astonishing conclusion is simple. The secret
doctrines o£ their faith hold out hopes that some day an army
of Druzes will burst out of the furthest limits of Asia and
conquer the world. The Japanese had shown indomitable
courage, the Druzes also are brave ; the Japanese had been
victorious, the Druzes of prophecy will be unconquerable ;
therefore the two are one and the same. The sympathy of
every one, whether in Syria or in Asia Minor, is on the side of
the Japanese, with the single exception of the members of
the Orthodox Church, who look on Russia as their protector.
It seems natural that the Ottoman government should re-
joice to witness the discomfiture of their secular foes, but it
is more difficult to account for the pleasure of Arab, Druze
(apart from the secret hope of the Druzes above mentioned),
and Kurd, between whom and the Turk there is no love lost.
These races are not wont to be gratified by the overthrow of

104 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

the Sultan's enemies, a class to which they themselves generally
belong. At bottom there is no doubt a certain Schaden-
freude, and the natural impulse to favour the little man against
the big bully, and behind all there is that curious link which is
so difficult to classify except by the name of a continent, and the
war appeals to the Asiatic because it is against the European.
However eagerly you may protest that the Russians cannot
be considered as a type of European civilisation, however
profoundly you may be convinced that the Japanese show
as few common characteristics with Turk or Druze as they
show with South Sea Islander or Esquimaux, East calls
to East, and the voice wakes echoes from the China Seas to
the Mediterranean.

We talked also of the Turk. Muhammad had been one
of the many sheikhs who were sent into exile after the Druze
war ; he had visited Constantinople, and his experiences em-
braced Asia Minor also, so that he was competent to hold an
opinion on Turkish characteristics. In a blind fashion, the
fashion in which the Turk conducts most of his affairs, the
wholesale carrying off of the Druze sheikhs and their enforced
sojourn for two or three years in distant cities of the Empire,
has attained an end for which far-sighted statesmanship might
have laboured in vain. Men who would otherwise never
have travelled fifty miles from their own village have been
taught perforce some knowledge of the * world ; they have
returned to exercise a semi-independence almost as they did
before, but their minds have received, however reluctantly,
the impression of the wide extent of the Sultan's dominions,
the mfinite number of his resources, and the comparative
unimportance of Druze revolts in an empire which yet survives
though it is familiar with every form of civil strife. Muhammad
had been so completely convinced that there was a world
beyond the limits of the Mountain that he had attempted to
push two of his six sons out into it by putting them into a
Government office in Damascus. He had failed because,
even with his maxims in their ears, the boys were too head-
strong. Some youthful neglect of duty, followed by a sharp
rebuke from their superior, had sent them hurrying back to
the village where they could be independent sheikhs, idle and

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 105

respected. Muhammad took in a weekly sheet published in
Damascus, and the whole family followed with the keenest
interest such news of foreign politics, of English politics in
particular, as escaped the censor's pencil. Important events
sometimes eluded their notice — or that of the editor — for
my hosts asked after Lord Salisbury and were deeply grieved
to hear he had been dead some years. The other name they
knew, besides Lord Cromer's, which is known always and
everywhere, was that of Mr. Chamberlain, and thus there
started in the mak'ad at Saleh an animated debate on the
fiscal question, lavishly illustrated on my part with examples
drawn from the Turkish gumruk, the Custom House. It may
be that my arguments were less exposed to contradiction
than those which most free traders are in a position to use,
for the whole of Saleh rejected the doctrines of protection
and retaliation (there was no half-way-house here) with
unanimity.

There was only one point which was not settled with
perfect satisfaction to all, and that was my journey to the
Safa. I have a shrewd suspicion that Milhem's letter, which
had been handed to me sealed, so that I had not been able to
read it, was of the nature of that given by Praetus to Belle-
rophon when he sent him to the King of Lycia, and that if
Muhammad was not commanded to execute the bearer on
arrival, he was strongly recommended to discourage her
project. At any rate, he was of opinion that the expedition
could not be accomplished unless I would take at least twenty
Druzes as escort, which would have involved so much pre-
paration and expense that I was obliged to abandon the idea,

At ten o'clock I was asked at what hour I wished to sleep,
and, to the evident chagrin of those members of the company
who had not been riding all day in the snow, I replied
that the time had come. The sons and nephews took their
departure, wadded quilts were brought in and piled into three
bed J one on each of the three sides of the immense divan,
the sheikh, Yusef and I tucked ourselves up, and I knew no
more till I woke in the sharp frost of the early dawn. I got
up and went out into the fresh air. Saleh was fast asleep in
the snow ; even the little stream that tumbled in and out of a

io6 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

Roman fountain in the middle of the village was sleeping
under a thick coat of ice. In the clear cold silence I watched
the eastern sky redden and fade and the sun send a long shaft
of light over the snow field through which we had toUed the
day before. I put up a short thanksgiving appropriate to
fine weather, roused the muleteers and the mules from their
common resting place under the dark vaults of the khan,
ate the breakfast which Muhammad en Nassar provided, and
took a prolonged and most grateful farewell of my host and
his family. No better night's rest and no more agreeable
company can have fallen to the lot of any wanderer by plain
and hill than were accorded to me at SaJeh.

LINTEL. EL f

CHAPTER VI

My objective that day was the village of Umm Ruweik on
the eastern edge of the Druze hills. Remembering the vagaries
of the map, I took with me one of Muhammad en Nassar's
nephews as a guide, Faiz was his name, and he was brother
to Ghishghash, the Sheikh of Umm Ruweik. I had singled
him out the night before as being the pleasantest member
of the pleasant circle in the mak'ad, and in a four days' ac-
quaintance there was never an incident that caused me to
regret my choice. He was a man with features all out of
drawing, his nose was crooked, his mouth was crooked, you
would not have staked anything upon the straight setting of
his eyes ; his manner was particularly gentle and obliging,
his conversation intelligent, and he was full of good counsel
and resource. We had not ridden very far along the lip of
the hills, I gazing at the eastern plain as at a Promised Land
that my feet would never tread, before Faiz began to develop
a plan for leaving the mules and tents behind at Umm Ruweik
and making a dash across the Safa to the Ruhbeh, where lay
the great ruin of which the accounts had fired my imagination.
In a moment the world changed colour, and Success shone from
the blue sky and hung in golden mists on that plain which
had suddenly become accessible.

Our path fell rapidly from Saleh, and in half an hour we
were out of the snow and ice that had plagued us for the last
day and night ; half an hour later when we reached the
Wadi Busan, where the swift waters turned a mill wheel, we
had left the winter country behind. Saneh, the village on
the north side of the Wadi Busan, looked a flourishing place
and contained some good specimens of Hauran architecture
— I remember in particular a fine architrave carved with a
double scroll of grapes and vine leaves that fell on either side

io8 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

of a vase occupying the centre of the stone. It was at Saneh
that we came onto the very edge of the plateau and saw the
great plain of the Safa spread out like a sea beneath us. The
strange feature of it was that its surface was as black as a
black tent roof, owing to the sheets of lava and volcanic stone
that were spread over it. At places there were patches o£
yellow, whicla I afterwards discovered to be the earth on which

the lumps of tufa lay revealed by their occasional absence,
and these the Arabs call the Beida, the White Land, in con-
tradistinction to the Harra, the Burnt Land of lava and
tufa. In the Safa the White Land is almost as arid as the
Burnt, though generally the word Beida means arable, for
I heard Faiz shout to the muleteers : " Come off the
Beida ! " when the mules had strayed into a field of winter
wheat. The literary word for desert bears a puzzling resem-
blance to this other, as for instance in Mutanabbi's verse.
" Al lail w'al ktail w'al beida ta'rafuni i "
Night and my steed and the desert know me —
And the lance thrust and battle, and parchment and the pen."

The Safa ran out to a dark mass of volcanoes, lying almost
due north and south, but we were so high above them that
their elevation was not perceptible. Beyond them again
we could see a wide stretch of Beida whidi was the Ruhbel

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN in

plain. To the east and south on the immensely distant
horizon a few little volcanic cones marked the end of the
Hauran outcrop of lava and the beginning of the Hamad,
the waterless desert that reaches to Baghdad. To the north
were the hills round Dmer, and still further north the other
range bounding the valley ten miles wide that leads to Pal-
myra, and these ran back to the slopes of Anti-Libanus, snow-
capped, standing above the desert road to Homs. We turned
east to Shibbekeh, a curious place built above a valley the
northern bank of which is honeycombed with caves, and
north to Sheikhly and Rameh on the southern brink of a very
deep gully, the Wadi esh Sham, down which are the most
easterly of the inhabited villages, Fedhameh and Ej Jeita.
The settlements on this side of the Mountain have an air of
great antiquity. The cave villages may have existed long
before Nabatsean times ; possibly they go back to the prehis-
toric uncertainties of King Og, or the people whom his name
covered, when whole towns were quarried out underground,
the most famous example being Dera'a in the Hauran plain
south of Mezerib. We left Mushennef to the west, not with-
out regrets on my part that I had not time to revisit it, for
mirrored in its great tank is one of the most charming of all
the temples of the Jebel Druze, not excepting the magnificent
monuments of Kanawat. El Ajlat, north of the Wadi esh
Sham, is perched on top of a tell high enough to touch the
February snow line, and another valley leads down from it
to the Safa — I heard of a ruin and an inscription in its lower
course but did not visit them We got to Umm Ruweik
about four o'clock, and pitched tents on the edge of the moun-
tain shelf, where I could see through my open tent door the
whole extent of the Safa.

Sheikh Ghishghash was all smiles. Certainly I cov*ld ride
out to the Ruhbeh if I would take him and his son Ahmed
and Faiz with me. He scoffed at the idea of a larger escort.
By the Face of the Truth, the Ghiath were his servants and his
bondmen, they would entertain us as the noble should be
entertained and provide us with luxurious lodgings. I dined
with Ghishghash (he would take no refusal), and concluded
tliat he was an easy tempered, boastful, and foolish man,

112 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

extremely talkative, though all that he said was not worth one
of Faiz's sentences. Faiz fell into comparative silence in his
company, and Ahmed too said little, but that little was
sensible and worth hearing. Ghishghash told great tales of
the Safa and of what it contained, the upshot of which was
that beyond the ruins already known there was nothing till
you travelled a day's journey east of the Ruhbeh, but that
there you came to a quarry and a ruined castle like the famous
White Ruin of the Ruhbeh which we were going to see,
but smaller and less well preserved. And beyond that
stretched the Hamad, with no dwellings in it and no rujm —
even the bravest of the Arabs were forced to desert it in the
summer owing to the total lack of water. My heart went out
to the mysterious castle east of the Ruhbeh, unvisited, I
believe, by any traveller ; but it was too distant a journey
to be accomplished on the spur of the moment without pre-
paration. " When you next return, oh lady ." Yes, when

I return. But I shall not on a future occasion rely on the
luxurious entertainment of the Ghiath.

After consultation I decided that Mikhail and Habib
should accompany us, the latter at his special request. He
would ride his best mule, he said, and she could keep pace
with any mare and carry besides the rugs and the five chickens
which we took with us to supplement the hospitality of the
Ghiath. I had a fur coat strapped behind my saddle and,
as usual, a camera and a note-book in my saddle-bags. We
rode down the steep slopes of the hills for an hour, three
other Druze horsemen joining us as we went. I presently
discovered that the sheikhs had added them to the stipu-
lated escort, but I made no comment. One of the three
was a relative of Ghishghash, his name Khittab; he had
travelled with Oppenheim and proved to be an agreeable
companion. We passed through the ploughland of Ghish-
ghash's village and then down slopes almost barren, though
they yielded enough pasturage for his flocks of sheep shepn
herded by Arabs, and at the foot of the hill we entered a shal-
low stony valley wherein was a tiny encampment surrounded
by more herds that quarried their dinner among the boulders.
After an hour of the valley, which wound between volcanic

KANAW7.T. DOORWAY OF THE BASILICA

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 115

rocks, we came out onto the wide desolation' of the Safa.
It is almost, but not quite, flat. The surface breaks into low
gentle billowings, just deep enough to shut out the landscape
from the horseman in the depression, so that he may journey
for an hour or more and see nothing but a sky-line of black
stones a few feet above him on eitlier side. The billowings
lave an ordered plan ; they form continuous waterless valleys.

(eanawAt, a temple
each one of which the Arabs know by a name. Valley
and ridge alike are covered with blocks of tufa, varying from
six inches across to two feet or more, and where there is any
space between them you can perceive the hard yellow soil,
the colour of sea sand, on which they lie. An extremely
scanty scrub pushes its way between the stones, hamad and
shih and hajeineh, and here and there a tiny geranium, the
starry garlic and the leaves of the tulip, but generally there
is no room even for the slenderest plants, so closely do the
stones lie together. They are black, smooth and edgeless,
as though they had been waterwom ; when the sun shines
the air dazzles above them as it dazzles above a sheet of
molten metal, and in the summer the comparison must hold
good in other respects, for the pitiless heat is said to be al-
most unendurable. It would be difficult to cross the $afa

ii6 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

if it were not for the innumerable minute paths that inter-
sect it. At first the rider is not aware of them, so small and
faint they are, but presently as he begins to wonder why there
is always just enough space before him for his horse to step
in, he realises that he is following a road. Hundreds of
generations of passing feet have pushed aside the tufa blocks
ever so little and made it possible to travel through that
wilderness of stones.

We rode by the depression called the Ghadir el Gharz,
and at the end of two hours we met one in rags, whose name
was Heart of God. He was extiemely glad to see us, was
Heart of God, having been a friend of the family for years (at
least eighty years I should judge), and extremely surprised
when he discovered me in the cavalcade. There his surprise
ceased, for when he heard I was English it conveyed nothing
further to him, his mind being unburdened with the names
and genealogies of the foreigner. He told us there was water
close at hand and that Arab tents were not more than two hours
away, and badeGhishghash go in peace, and might there be peace
also upon the stranger with him. In the matter of the tents
he lied, did Heart of God, or we misunderstood him ; but we
found the water, a muddy pool, and lunched by it, sharing
it with a herd of camels. Water in the Safa there is none fit
to drink according to European canons, and for that matter
there is none in the Jebel Dmze. There are no springs in
the hills ; the water supply is contained in open tanks, and
the traveller may consider himself fortunate if he be not asked
to drink a liquid in which he has seen the mules and camels
wallowing. Under the most favourable conditions it is sure
to be heavily laden with foreign ingredients which boiling
will not remove, though it renders them comparatively inno-
cuous. The tea made with this fluid has a body and a flavour
of its own ; it is the colour of muddy coffee and leaves a
sediment at the bottom of the cup. Mikhail carried an
earthenware jar of boiled water for me from camp to camp,
and having brought him to use this precaution by refusing
to drink of the pools and tanks we might meet by the way,
I had no difficulty in continuing the system in the Safa. He
and the Druzes and the muleteers drank what they found.

IHE TEMPLE, MASHENNEJ^

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 119

whether in the Mountain or in the Safa, and they did not
appear to suffer from any ill effect. Probably the germs
contained in their careless draughts were so numerous and
so active that they had enough to do in destroying one another.
We rode on and on over all the stones in the world, and
even Ghishghash fell silent or spoke only to wonder where the
tents of the Ghiath might be. Khittab opined that when we
reached the Kantarah, the Arch, we should catch sight of
them, and I pricked up my ears at a name that seemed to
ipiply some sort of construction. But the Kantarah was nothing
more than a rise in the ground, a little higher than the rest
and no less stony. There are many such ; leading up to the
crest of most of them is a track by which the Arabs creep
on their stomachs to look out for foes, hidden themselves
behind the small black pile that has been erected as a per-
manent bastion on the summit. In summer the Safa is
swept with raiders. Big tribes like the 'Anazeh ride through
to deal a sudden blow at some enemy to the south or north,
harrying the Ghiath as they pass, and since there are exceed-
ingly few places where water is to be found in the unparalleled
heat of the stony waste, the raiders and such men of the
Ghiath as are still in the plain have no choice but to frequent
at dusk the same muddy holes, and the days and nights of the
Ghiath are dogged in consequence by constant terror till
the great tribes go east again to the Hamad. There was
no sign of tents to be seen from the Kantarah, and it began
to seem probable that we should spend a waterless night
among the stones under the clear frosty sky, when about an
hour before sunset Khittab exclaimed that he could see the
smoke of camp fires to the north-west. We rode a good way
back, making a semicircle of our course, and got to the tents
at nightfall after a journey of nine hours. With the goats and
camels who were returning home after a laborious day's
feeding we stumbled in over the stones, and very miserable
the little encampment looked, though it had been so eagerly
desired. A couple of hundred pounds would be a hand-
some price for all the worldly goods of all the Ghiath , they
have nothing but the black tents and a few camels and the
coffee-pots, and if they had more it would be taken from them

t2o THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

in a midsummer ghazu. They live by bread alone — shirak
the thin flaps that are like brown paper — and for the whole
length of their days they wander among the stones in fear
of their lives, save for the month or two when they come up
to the Jebel Druze for the pasturage.

We scattered, being a large party, and Ghishghash, my
servants and I went to the house of the sheikh, whose name
was Understanding. His two sons, Muhammad and Ham-
dan, lighted a fire of thorn and camel dung that smoked
abominably, and we sat round and watched the coffee making.
Muhammad, being the eldest, officiated. He was skilful in
the song of the pestle, and beat out a cheerful tattoo upon the
mortar. His face was dark and thin and his white teeth
shone when he smiled ; he was dressed airily in dirty white
cotton garments, a cotton kerchief fell from the camel's
hair rope on his head down on to his bare breast, and he spoke
in a guttural speech which was hard to follow. Our dinner
was of shirak and dibs ; the Ghiath are too poor to kill a
sheep for their guest, even when he is a personage so important
as Ghishghash. He, foolish man, was in his element. He
preened himself and swelled with pride, combed out his
long moustache before the admiring gaze of his hosts and
talked without ceasing until far into the night, silly talk,
thought I, who longed to be allowed to sleep. I had a rug
to cover me and my saddle for a pillow, and I lay in a comer
by the sahah, the division against the women's quarter,
and at times I listened to a conversation which was not par-
ticularly edifying, and at times I cursed the acrid, pungent
smoke. Towards the middle of the night I was awakened
by the moon that shone with a frosty brilliance into the tent.
The fire had burnt down and the smoke had blown out ; the
Arabs and the Druzes were lying asleep round the cold hearth ;
a couple of mares stood peacefully by the tent pole and gazed
with wise eyes upon their masters within, and beyond them a
camel lay chumping among the black stones. The strange
and silent beauty of a scene as old as the world caught at
the heart and spurred the fancy even after sleep had fallen
upon it again.

Before dawn Mikhail had succeeded in making me a cup

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 121

of tea over the fitful blaze of the thorns, and as the sun rose
we got into the saddle, for we had far to go. " God's bright
and intricate device " had clothed the black plain in exquisite
loveliness. The level sun towards which we were riding
cast a halo of gold round ev«y stone, the eastern ranges of
volcanoes stood in clear cut outline against the cloudless sky,
and to the north-west the snows of Anti-Libanus and Her-
mon gleamed incredibly bright above the glittering blackness
of the foreground. One of the Arabs was added to our party
as a guide ; 'Awad was his name. He rode a camel, and
from that point of vantage conversed with us in a raucous
shout, as though to bridge the immense distance between
rakib and faris, a camel rider and one who rides a mare. We
were all shivering as we set out in the chill dawn, but 'Awad
turned the matter into a jest by calling out from his camel :
" Lady, lady ! do you know why I am cold ? It is be-
cause I have four wives in the house ! " And the others
laughed, for he had the reputation of being a bit of a Don Juan,
and such funds as he possessed went to replenishing his harem
rather than his wardrobe.

I think we must speedily have re-entered the Ghadir el
Gharz. After two hours' riding we crossed some rising ground
to the south-west of the Tulul es Safa, the line of volcanoes,
and cantered across a considerable stretch of stoneless yellow
ground, Beida, till we came to the southern end of the lava
bed. The lava lay on our left hand like a horrible black
nightmare sea, not so much frozen as curdled, as though
some hideous terror had arrested the flow of it and petrified
the lines of shrinking fear upon its surface. But it was long
long ago that a mighty hand had lifted the Gorgon's head be-
fore the waves of the Tulul es Safa. Sun and frost and aeons
of time had splintered the original forms of the volcanoes,
rent the lava beds, shattered the precipices and obliterated
the features of the hills. One or two terebinths had found a
foothold in the' crevices, but when I passed they were still
bare and grey and did nothing to destroy the general sense of
lifelessness.

As we rode round these frontiers of death I became aware
that we were following a track almost as old as the hills

122 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

themselves, a little thread of human history leading us straight
through that forbidding land. 'Awad kept talking of a stone
which he called El 'Abla, a word that denotes a white rock
visible from afar, but I was so much used to names signi-
fying nothing that I paid no attention until he stopped
his camel and shouted :

" Oh lady ! here it is. By the Face of God, this is El
'Abla."

It was no more nor less than a well stone. It bore the
groove of the rope worn a couple of inches deep into it, and
must have served a respectable time, since this black rock is
extremely hard, but there was no modern well within miles
of it. Close at hand was a big heap of stones and then another
and another, two or three in every quarter of a mile, and
when I looked closely I perceived that they were built, not
thrown together. Some of them had been opened by Arabs
seeking for treasure, and where the topmost layers had been
thus removed a square shallow space lay revealed in the centre
of the mound, carefully constructed of half-dressed blocks.
*Awad said that as far as he knew nothing had ever been found
in these places, whatever they might have contained formerly.
Clearly the mounds were made to mark the line of that an-
cient road through the wilderness. 'Awad stopped again a
few hundred yards further at some black rocks almost
flush with the ground, and they were like the open pages of
a book in which all the races that had passed that way
had written their names, in the queer script that the learned
call Safaitic, in Greek, in Cufic, and in Arabic. Last of all
the unlettered Bedouin had scrawled their tribe marks
there.

" By Shuraik son of Naghafat son of Na'fis (?) son of
Nu'man," so ran one of them ; and another : " By Bukhalih son
of Thann son of An'am son of Rawak son of Bukhalih He
found the inscription of his uncle and he longed after him
and . . . ." And there was another in a label which I did
not copy sufficiently well to admit of its being deciphered
with certainty. Probably it contains two names connected
by **ibn," **son of." Above the names are seven straight
lines which, according to Dussaud's ingenious suggestion.

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 123

may represent the seven planets.* The Greek letters spelt
the word Hanelos, which is John, a Semitic name written
possibly by its owner in the foreign script that he had
learnt while he served imder the Roman eagles ; the Cufic
sentences were pious ejaculations calling down a blessing on
the traveller who had paused to inscribe them. So each
man according to his kind had left his record and departed
into the mists of time, and beyond these scratches on the
black rocks we know nothing of his race, nor of his history,
nor of the errand that brought him into the inhospitable
Ghadir el Gharz. As I copied the phrases they seemed like
the murmur of faint voices from out the limbo of the for-
gotten past, and Orpheus with his lute could not have
charmed the rocks to speak more clearly of the generations
of the dead. All the Safa is full of these whisperings ;
shadows that are nothing but a name quiver in the quiver-
ing air above the stones, and call upon their God in divers
tongues.

I copied in haste, for there was no time to lose that day.
The Druzes stood round me impatiently, and 'Awad shouted,
Yallah, yallah! ya sitt," which being interpreted means,
Hurry up ! *' We rode on to the eastern limit of the Safa,
turned the comer of the lava bed, and saw the yellow plain of
the Ruhbeh before us. I know, because I have observed it
from the Jebel Druze, that it stretches for a great distance to
the east ; but, when we reached it, it seemed no wider than half a
mile, and beyond it lay a wonderful lake of bluish misty water.
The little volcanoes far away to the east rose like islands out
of the sea, and were mirrored in the water at their feet ; yet
as we rode towards that inland flood, its shores retreated
before us, for it was but a phantom sea whereat the phantom
hosts of the Safa may fitly assuage their thirst. Then on
the brink of the lava hills we caught sight of a grey tower,
and in the plain below it we saw a domed and whitewashed
shrine, and these were the Khirbet el Beida and the Mazar of
Sheikh Serak. Sheikh Serak inherits his position as guardian

• Dussaud, ** Mission Scientific," p. 64. The translation of the
inscriptions I owe to the kindness of Dr. Littmann, who will include
the original copies in his ** Semitic Inscriptions."

124 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

of the Ruhbeh from Zeus Saphathenos, who is in turn the
direct heir to the god El, the earliest divinity of the Safa.
His business is to watch over the crops, which in good years
the Arabs sow round his soul's dwelling place ; he is respected
by Moslem and by Druze alike, and he holds a well-attended
yearly festival which had fallen about a fortnight before I
came. The shiine itself is a building of the Haurtn tj'pe.with

a stone roof supported on transverse arches. Over the doors
there is a carved lintel taken from the ruins of the White
Castle .

But I could scarcely stay while my men assembled here,
so eager was I to see the Kal'at el Beida — Khirbeh or
Kal'ah, ruin or castle, the Arabs call it either indifferently.
I left the Druzes to pay such respects as were due to 2eus
Saphathenos or whoever he might be, and cantered off to the
edge of the lava plateau. A deep ditch lay before the lava,
so full of water that I had to cross it by a little bridge of planks ;
Habrb was there watering his mule, that admirable mule
which walked as fast as the mares, and, entrusting my horse to
him, I hastened on over the broken lava and into the fortress
court. There were one or two Arabs sauntering through it,
but they paid as little attention to me as I did to them. This

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 125

was it, the famous citadel that guards a dead land from an
unpeopled, the Safa from the Hamad. Grey white on the
black platform rose the walls of smoothly dressed stones, the
ghostly stronghold of a world of ghosts. Whose hands reared
it, whose art fash-
ioned the flowing
scrolls on door-post .
and lintel, whose
eyes kept v^ from
the tower, cannot
yet be decided with
any certainty.
Hanelos and Shuraik
and Bukhalih may
have looked for it as
they rounded the
comer of the Wadi
el Gharz, and per-
haps the god El took
it under his protec-
tion, and perhaps
the prayers of the
watchman were
turned to some
distant temple, and
offered to the dei-
ties of Greece and

Rome. A thousand ^ beida

unanswered, unan-
swerable, questions spring to your mind as you cross the
threshold.

De Vog'i6 and Oppenheim and Dussaud have described
the Khirbet el Beida, and any one who cares to read their
words may know that it is a square enclosure with a round
tower at each corner, a round bastion between the towers
and a rectangular keep against the south wall ; that its door-
ways are carved with wonderlul flowing patterns, scrolls and
leaves and flowers, with animals striding through them; and
that it is probably an outlying fortress of Rome, built between

1 26 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

the second and fourth centuries. The fact remains that we
are not certain of its origin, anymore than we are certain of
the origin of the ruins near it at Jebel Ses, or of Mshitta, or of
any of the buildings in the western desert. There are resem*
blances between them all, and there are marked differences,
just as there are resemblances between Kal'at el Beida and
the architecture of the Hauran, and yet what stonecutter
of the Mountain would have let his imagination so outstrip
the classic rule as did the man who set the images of the
animals of the desert about the doors of the White Castle ?
There is a breath of something that is strange to neighbouring
art, a wilder, freer fancy, not so skilled as that which created
the tracery of Mshitta, cruder, and probably older. It is
all guess work ; the desert may give up its secrets, the history
of the Safa and the Ruhbeh may be pieced together from the
lettered rocks, but much travel must be accomplished first
and much excavation on the Syrian frontiers, in Hira perhaps,
or in Yemen. I would only remark that the buildings at
Kal'at el Beida cannot as they stand belong to one and the
same period. The keep is certainly a later work than the
curtain walls of the fort. While these are built with mortar,
like the Roman camp at Kastal and the fortress at Muwakkar,
the keep is of dry masonry resembling that which is universal
in the Hauran, and in its walls are set carved stones which
were assuredly not executed for the positions they occupy.
Even the decoration about the main door of the keep is of
borrowed stones ; the two superimposed carved blocks of the
lintel do not fit each other, and neither fits the doorway. But
the only conclusion I venture to draw is, that the two sugges-
tions of origin that have been made by archaeologists, the one
that the place was a Roman camp, the other that it was the
Ghassanid fortress, may both be true.

The edge of the lava plateau lies a few feet above the
plain. Along this natural redoubt are other buildings be-
sides the White Castle, but none of them are of the same
architectural interest. Their walls are roughly made of
squared tufa blocks laid dry, whereas the castle is of a grey
stone, and part of it is constructed with mortar. The only
building of any importance that I visited lay a little to the

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

north and had been roofed after the IJauran manner with stone
slabs laid on transverse arches. At intervals along the lava
bed there were small towers like sentry boxes guarding the
approach to the castle, and these, too, were of dry masonry.

A couple of hours'
halt was all that we
could allow ourselves,
for we had to be in
sight of our encamp-
ment before the dusk
closed in at the risk
of passing the night
in the open Safa. So
after devouring
hastily the remains
of the five cliickens
we had bi ought,
from Umm Ruweik,
flavoured by stalks
of wild onions that
Awad had found in
the lava, we set oflt
homewards. We just
accomplished the
ride of 4I hours in
time, that is we saw
the smoke of the
camp fires before
night fell, and got

our direction there- kal'at el beida. dooe of keep

by. A series of

spaces cleared of stones led us to the camp. These open places
are the marah (tent marks) of the 'Anazeh, who used to camp in
the Safa before the Druzes established themselves in the Moun-
tain over a hundred years ago. The marali, therefore, have
remained visible after at least a century, and will remain, pro-
bably, or many centuries more. There was a strong cold
wind that evening, and the main wall of the tent had been
shifted round to shelter us the better ; but for all that we passed

128 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

a comfortless night, and the cold woke me several times to an
uneasy sense of having fallen asleep on an ant hill. How the
Arabs contrive to collect so many fleas among so few pos-
sessions is an insoluble mystery. There was hardly a suitable
place for them to lodge in, except the tent walls themselves,
and when those walls are taken down they must show skill
and agility beyond the common wont of fleas in order to get
themselves packed up and carried off to the next camping
ground, but that they are equal to the task every one knows
who has spent a night in a house of hair. After two nights
with the Ghiath our own tents seemed a paradise of luxury
when we returned to them the next afternoon, and a bath
the utmost height to which a Sybaritic life could attain,
even when taken in a temperature some degrees below
freezing point.

During our ride homewards an incident occurred which
is worth recording, as it bears on Druze customs. The sect,
as has been remarked before, is divided into initiated and
uninitiated. To the stranger the main difference between the
two is that the initiated abstain from the use of tobacco, and
I had noticed in the evening I spent at Saleh that none of
Muhammad en Nassar's family smoked. I was therefore
surprised when Faiz, finding himself alone with Mikhail and
me, begged the former for a cigarette, and I apologised for
having omitted to offer him one before, saying that I had
understood smoking to be forbidden to him. Faiz blinked
his crooked eyes, and replied that it was as I had said, and that
he would not have accepted 'a cigarette if another Druze had
been in sight, but that since none of his co-religionists were
present he felt himself at liberty to do as he pleased. He
begged me, however, not to mention to his brother this lapse
from virtue. That night in the mak'ad of Umm Ruweik
the three sheikhs and I laid many plans for a further explora-
tion of the Safa, settled the number of camels I was to
take with me, and even the presents which were to reward
the escort at the end of the journey. Faiz and Ahmed and
Khittab shall certainly be of the expedition if the selecting o\
it lies in my hands.

Next morning at 8.30 we started on our three days' ride to

MOULDINGS FROM KALA'AT EL BEIDA AND FROM PALMYRA.
THE UPRIGHT BLOCK IS FROM KALA'AT EL BEIDA

THE DESERT AND TTIE SOWN 131

Damascus. Of Umm Ruweik I need only add that it tooV
exactly four days to scrape together sufficient money among
the inhabitants for the changing o* a gold piece. We hati
brought a bag of silver and copper coins with us from Jeni-
salem, but when it
was exhausted we
had the utmost diffi-
culty in paying our
debts — this is also
one of the Hints to
Travellers that Mik-
hail urged me to
embody in the book
I was to write. We
rode by enchanting
slopes, covered where
the snow had melted
with the sky-blue
Iris Histrio, and
spent an hour or
two at Shakka, which
was one of the prin-
cipal scenes of de
Vogue's archEcologi-
cal work. The basi-
lica which figures as
almost perfect in his
book is now fallen

completely into ruin, . a . s a

only the facade remaining, but the Kaisarieh slill stands,
and the monastery which he believes to be one of the oldest
monastic buildings in existence. We rode by Hit, an inter-
esting village containing a fine pre-Arabic house in which
the sheikh lives, and camped at Bathaniyyeh in a frost that
sent me shivering to bed. It was here that a running stream
was completely frozen. Next day I made a circuit to visit
Hayat, where there is a lovely Kalybeh, published by deVogiie,
and a castle, that I might fill up some gaps in my former
journey and see what sort of buildings are to be found on the

132 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

northern slopes of the mountain, if I could do no more. The
old villages are rapidly filling up, and in a few years little
trace of their monuments will remain. 3o we came down
irito the plain, joined the Leja road from SUahbah to Damas-
cus at Lahiteh, and pursued our mules to Brak, the furthest
village of the Hauran. There is a military post at Brak held
by a score of soldiers ; just before we reached it we met a
little Druze girl who cowered by the roadside and wept with
fear at the sight of us. " I am a maid ! " she cried, " I am a
maid ! " Her words threw an ominous shadow upon the
Turkish regime under which we were now. to find ourselves
again. Almost opposite the fort we passed two Druzes re-
turning from Damascus. They gave me a friendly greeting,
and I said :

*' Are you facing to the Mountain ? "
They said : ** By God ! may God keep you ! "
I said : " I come from thence — salute it for me," and they
answered :

" May God salute you ! go in peace ! "
It is never without a pang that the traveller leaves the
Druze country behind, and never without registering a vow
to return to it as soon as may be.

Having passed under the protection of the Sultan, I found
that my road next day lay across a really dangerous bit of
country. The Circassians and Turks of Brak (the Turks were
charming people from the northern parts of Asia Minor) dis-
suaded me strongly from taking the short cut across the hills
to Damascus, so strongly that I had almost abandoned the
idea. They said the hills were infested by robbers and pro-
bably empty of Arab encampments at this time of year,
so that the robbers had it all their own way. Fortunately
next morning we heard of a company of soldiers who were
said to be riding to Damascus across the hills, and the report
encouraged us to take the same path. We never saw them,
and I do not believe that they had any real existence ; on
the other hand, we did see some black tents which gave us
confidence at the worst bit of the road, and the robbers must
have been otherwise engaged for they did not appear. But I
noted with interest, firstly, that desert life comes to within an

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 133

hour or two of Damascus, a fact I had not been able to ob-
serve before when I went by the high road, and secondly
that the Sultan's peace, if peace it can be called, ceases
almost at the walls of the chief city of Syria. We crossed the
Nahr el 'Aw5j, which is the Pharpar, and reached soon after
midday the Circassian village of Nejha, where I stopped to
lunch under a few poplars, the first grove of trees I had seen

since we left Salt. Whether you ride to Damascus by a
short cut or by a high road, from the Hauran or from
Palmyra, it is always further away than any known place.
Perhaps it is because the traveller is so eager to reach
it, the great and splendid Arab city set in a girdle of fruit
trees and filled with the murmur of running water. But
if he have only patience there is no road that will not end
at last; and we, too, at the last came to the edge of the
apricot gardens and then to the Bawabet Ullah, the Gates of
God, and so passed into the Meidan, the long quarter ol
shops and khans stretching out like the handle to a great spoon,
in the bowl of which lie the minarets and domes of the ricli
quarters. By four o'clock I was lodged in the Hotel Victoria,
apd had a month's post of letters and papers in my hands.

CHAPTER VIJ

When I had come to Damascus five years before, my chief
counsellor and friend — a friend whose death will be deplored
by many a traveller in Syria — was Liitticke, head of the
banking house of that name and honorary German consul.
It was a chance remark of his that revealed to me the place
that the town had and still has in Arab history. " I am
persuaded," said he, " that in and about Damascus you may
see the finest Arab population that can be found anywhere.
They are the descendants of the original invaders who came
up on the first great wave of the conquest, and they have kept
their stock almost pure."

Above all other cities Damascus is the capital of the
desert. The desert stretches up to its walls, the breath of it is
blown in by every wind, the spirit of it comes through the
eastern gates with every camel driver. In Damascus the
sheikhs of the richer tribes have their town houses ; you may
meet Muhammad of the Haseneh or Bassan of the Beni
Rashid peacocking down the bazaars on a fine Friday, in
embroidered cloaks and purple and silver kerchiefs fastened
about their brows with camels' hair ropes bound with gold.
They hold their heads high, these Lords of the Wilderness,
striding through the holiday crowds, that part to give them
passage, as if Damascus were their own town. And so it is,
for it was the first capital of the Bedouin khalifs outside the
Hejaz, and it holds and remembers the greatest Arab tra-
ditions. It was almost the first of world-renowned cities
to fall before the irresistible chivalry of the desert which
Muhammad had called to arms and to which he had given
purpose and a battle-cry, and it was the only one which
remained as important under the rule of Islam as it had been
under the empire of Rome. Mu'awiyah made it his capital,

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 135

and it continued to be the chief city of IslSm until the fall of
the house of Ummayah ninety years later. It was the last
of Moslem capitals that ruled in accordance with desert tra-
ditions. Persian generals placed the Beni Abbas upon their
throne in Mesopotamia, Persian and Turkish influences were
dominant in Baghdad, and with them crept in the fatal habits
of luxury which the desert had never known, nor the early
khalifs who milked their own goats and divided the spoils
of their victories among the Faithful. The very soil of Meso-
potamia exhaled emanations fatal
to viriUty. The ancient ghosts of
Babylonian and Assyrian palace
intrigue rose from their muddy
graves, mighty in evil, to over- 1
throw the soldier khalif, to strip
him of his armour and to tie him '
hand and foot with silk and gold.
Damascus had been innocent of
them ; Damascus, swept by the
clean desert winds, had ruled the

empire of the Prophet with some in the paimvrene desert
of the Spartan vigour of early days. She was not a parvenue
like the capitals on the Tigris ; she had seen kings and em-
perors within her walls, and learnt the difference between
strength and weakness, and which path leads to dominion
and which to slavery.

When I arrived I was greeted with the news that my
journey in the Hauran had considerably agitated the mind
of his Excellency Nazim Pasha, Vali of Syria ; indeed it was
currently reported that this much exercised and delicately
placed gentleman had been vexed beyond reason by my
sudden appearance at Salkhad and that he had retired to
his bed when I had departed beyond the reach of Yusef Effendi's
eye, though some - suggested that the real reason for his
Excellency's sudden indisposition was a desire to avoid taking
part in the memorial service to the Archduke Serge. Be that
as it may, he seat me on the day of my arrival a polite
message expressing his hope that he might have the pleasure
of making my acquaintance.

136 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

I confess my principal feeling was one of penitence when I
was ushered into the big new house that the Vali has built for
himself at the end of Salahiyyeh, the suburb of Damascus that
stretches along the foot of the bare hills to the north of the
town. I had a great wish to apologise, or at any rate to prove
to him that I was not to be regarded as a designing enemy.
These sentiments were enhanced by the kindness with which
he received me, and the respect with which he inspires those
who come to know him. He is a man of a nervous tempera-
ment, always on the alert against the difficulties with which his
vilayet is not slow to provide him, conscientious, and I should
fancy honest, painfully anxious to reconcile interests that are
as easy to combine as oil with vinegar, the corner of his eye
fixed assiduously on his royal master who will take good
care that so distinguished a personality as Nazim Pasha
shall be retained at a considerable distance from the shores
of the Bosphorus. The Vali has been eight years in Damas-
cus, the usual term of office being five, and he has evidently
made up his mind that in Damascus he will remain, if no ill
luck befall him, for he has built himself a large house and
planned a fine garden, the laying out of which distracts his
mind, let us hope, from preoccupations that can seldom
be pleasant. One of his safeguards is that he has been
actively concerned with the construction of the Hejaz rail-
way, in which the Sultan takes the deepest interest, and until
it is completed or abandoned he is sufficiently useful to be
kept at his post.* The bazaar, that is public opinion, does
not think that it will be abandoned, in spite of the opposition
of the Sherif of Mecca and all his clan, who will never be con-
vinced of the justice of the Sultan's claim to the khalifate
of Islam nor willing to bring him into closer touch with the
religious capitals. The bazaar backs the Sultan against the
Sherif and all other adversaries, sacred or profane. The wheels
of the Turk grind slowly and often stop, but in the end they
grind small, especially when the grist is Arab tribes rendered
peculiarly brittle by their private jealousies and suspicions

* Since I wrote tliese sentences, a turn of the political wheel has
brought him down, and he is now reduced to an unimportant post in
the island of Rhodes.

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 139

and pretensions. Turkish policy is like that of which Ibn
Kulthiim sang when he said ;

When our mill is set down among a people they are as flour before

our coming.
Our meal cloth is spread eastwards of Nejd and the grain is the whole

tribe of Kuda'a.
Like guests you alighted at our door and we hastened our hospitality

lest you should turn on us.
We welcomed you and hastened the welcoming : yea, before the

dawn, and our mills grind small.

Nazim Pasha, though he has been eight years in Sjn'ia,
talks no Arabic. We in Europe, who speak of Turkey as
though it were a homogeneous empire, might as well when we
speak of England intend the word to include India, the Shan
States, Hongkong and Uganda. In the sense ot a land in-
habited mainly by Turks there is not such a country as
Turkey. The parts of his dominions where the Turk is in a
majority are few ; generally his position is that of an alien
governing, with a handful of soldiers and an empty purse, a
mixed collection of subjects hostile to him and to each other.
He is not acquainted with their language, it is absurd to
expect of him much sympathy for aspirations political and
religious which are generaily made known to him amid a
salvo of musketry, and if the bullets happen to be directed, as

140 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

they often are, by one unruly and unreasonable section of the
vilayet at another equally unreasonable and unruly, he is
hardly likely to feel much regret at the loss of life that may
result. He himself, when he is let alone, has a strong sense of
the comfort of law and order. Observe the internal arrange-
ments of a Turkish village, and you shall see that the Turkish
peasant knows how to lay down rules of conduct and how
to obey them. I believe that the best of our own native local
officials in Egypt are Turks who have brought to bear under
the new regime the good sense and the natural instinct for
government for which they had not much scope under the old.
It is in the upper grades that the hierarchy of the Ottoman
Empire has proved so defective, and the upper grades are
filled with Greeks, Armenians, Syrians, and personages of
various nationalities generally esteemed in the East (and not
without reason) untrustworthy. The fact that such men as
these should inevitably rise to the top, points to the reason
of the Turk's failure. He cannot govern on wide lines, though
he can organise a village community ; above all he cannot
govern on foreign lines, and unfortunately he is brought more
and more into contact with foreign nations. Even his own
subjects have caught the infection of progress. The Greeks
and Armenians have become merchants and bankers, the
Syrians merchants and landowners ; they find themselves
hampered at every turn by a government which will not
realise that a wealthy nation is made up of wealthy subjects.
And yet, for all his failure, there is no one who would
obviously be fitted to take his place. For my immediate
purpose I speak only of Syria, the province with which I am
the most familiar. Of what value are the pan-Arabic asso-
ciations and the inflammatory leaflets that they issue
from foreign printing presses ? The answer is easy : they
are worth nothing at all. There is no nation of Arabs ;
the Syrian merchant is separated by a wider gulf from
the Bedouin than he is from the Osmanli, the Syrian
country is inhabited by Arabic speaking races all eager to be
at each other's throats, and only prevented from fulfilling
their natural desires by the ragged half fed soldier who draws
at rare intervals the Sultan's pay. And this soldier, whether

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 141

he be Kurd or Circassian or Arab from Damascus, is worth
a good deal more than the hire he receives. Other armies
may mutiny, but the Turkish army will stand true to the
khalif ; other armies may give way before suffering and
privation and untended sickness, but that of the Sultan will
go forward as long as
it can stand, and fight
as long as it has arms,
and conquer as long
as it has leaders.
There is no more
wonderful and pitiful
sight than a Turkish
regiment on the
march : greybeards
and half-fledged
youths, ill-clad and
often barefoot,
pinched and worn —
and indomitable. Let
such as watch them
salute them as they
pass : in the days
when war was an art
rather than a science,
of that stuff the con-
querors of the world ^^^ kUBBET DL KHAINEH

were made. .1.1

But I have left the Governor of Syria waitmg far too long.
We talked, then, in French, a language with which he was
imperfectly acquainted, and from time to time a Syrian
gentleman helped him in Turkish over the stUes and pitfalls
of the foreign tongue. The Syrian was a rich Maronite land-
owner of the Lebanon, who happened to be in good odour at
Government House though he had but recently spent a year
in prison. He had accompanied me upon my visit and was
then and there appointed by the Vali to be my acerone in
Damascus ; Selim Beg was his name. The talk was princi-
pally of archjeology, I purposely insisting on my mterest m

142 THE DESERT AND THE SOWS

that subject as compared with the politics of the Mountain
and the Desert, to which we thus avoided any serious allusion.
The Vali was affability itself. He presented me with certain
photographs of the priceless manuscripts of the Kubbet el
Khazneh in the Great Mosque, now closed forever to the public
eye, and promised me the rest of the series. To that end
a bowing personage took my English address and noted it
carefully in a pocket book, and I need scarcely say that that
was the last any one heard of the matter. Presently the
Vali announced that Madame Pasha and the children were
waiting to see me, and I followed him upstairs into a sunny
room with windows opening on to a balcony from which you
could see all Damascus and its gardens and the hills beyond.
There is only one Madame Pasha, and she is a pretty, sharp-
featured Circassian, but there was another (gossip says the
favourite) who died a year ago. The children were engaging.
They recited French poems to me, their bright eyes quick to
catch and to respond to every expression of approbation
or amusement ; they played tinkling polkas, sitting very
upright on the music stool with their pig-tails hanging down
their velvet backs. The Pasha stood in the window and
b(*amrd upon them, the Circassian wife smoked cigarettes and
bowed whenever she caught my eye, a black slave boy at the
door grinned from car to ear as his masters and mistresses,
who were also his school-mates and his play-fellows, accom-
plished their tasks. I came away with a delightful impression
of pretty smiling manners and vivacious intelligence, and
expressed my pleasure to the Pasha as we went down
stairs.

'* Ah ! •' said he politely, " if I could have them taught
Knglish I But what will you ? we cannot get an English-
woman to agree with our customs, and I have only the Greek
lady whom you saw to teach them French."

I had indeed noticed the Cirook woman, an underbred little
person, whose bearing could !iot escape attention in the grace-
ful company upstairs, but I was not slow to expatiate on the
exooUonce of the French she spoke — may Heaven forgive me !
The Pasha shook his head,

** II I could got an Englisliwoman I ** said he. Unfor-

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 145

tunately I had no one to suggest for the post, nor would he
have welcomed a suggestion.

Before I left, two distinguished personages arrived to
have audience of the Vali. The first was a man by com-
plexion almost a negro, but with an unmistakable look of race
and a sharp quick glance.

He was the Amir 'AbduUah I

Pasha, son of 'Abd ul K3dir,

the great Algerian, by a I

negro slave. The second
was Sheikh Ilassan Nakshi-
bendi, hereditary chief —
pope, I had almost said —
of an orthodoi order of
Isl3m famous in Damascus,
where its principal Tek-
yah is situated. (Now
a Tekyah is a religious
institution for the housing
■ of mendicant dervishes and
other holy persons, some-
thing like a monastery, only
that there is no vow of
chastity imposed upon its
members, who may have
as many wives as they
choose outside the Tekyah ;

Sheikh Hassan himself had °*^" '"' '"" tkkvah

the full complement of four.) All the wOy ecclesiastic's
astuteness shone from the countenance of this worthy. 1
do not know that his wits were especially remarkable, but his
unscrupulousness must have supplemented any deficiencies,
or his smile belied him. The meeting with these two accom-
plished my introduction to Damascus society. Both of them
extended to me a warm invitation to visit them in their houses,
the Tekyah or anywhere I would, and I accepted all, but I
went to the Amir 'Abdullah first.

Or rather, I went first to the house of his elder brother,
the Amir 'Ali Pasha, because it was there that 'Abd ul ^adir

146 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

had lived, and there that he had sheltered, during the black
days of the massacres in i860, a thousand Christians. About
his name there lingers a romantic association of courage and
patriotism, crowned by a wise and honoured age full of
authority and the power lent by wealth, for the 'Abd ul
Kadir family own all the quarter in which they reside. The
house, like any great Damascus house, made no show from
the outside. We entered through a small door in a narrow
winding street by a dark passage, turned a couple of corners
and found ourselves in a marble court with a fountain in the
centre and orange trees planted round. All the big rooms
opened into this court, the doors were thrown wide to me, and
coffee and sweetmeats were served by the groom of the cham-
bers, while I admired the decoration of the walls and the water
that bubbled up into marble basins and flowed away by marble
conduits. In this and in most of the Damascene palaces
every window sill has a gurgling pool in it, so that the air that
blows into the room may bring with it a damp freshness.
The Amir 'Ali was away, but his major domo, who looked like
a servant de bonne maison and had the respectful familiarity
of manner that the Oriental dependant knows so well how to
assume, showed us his master's treasures, the jewelled sabre
presented to the old Amir by Napoleon III, 'Abd ul Kadir's
rifles, and a pair of heavy, silver-mounted swords sent as a
gift last year by 'Abd ul 'Aziz ibn er Rashid — there is a tra-
ditional friendship, I learnt, between the Algerian family and
the Lords of Hail. He showed us, too, pictures of 'Abd ul
Kadir ; the Amir leading his cavalry, the Amir at Versailles
coming down the steps of the palace with Napoleon, bearing
himself as one who wins and not as one who loses, the Amir
as an old man in Damascus, always in the white Algerian
robes that he never abandoned, and always with the same
grave and splendid dignity of countenance. And last I was led
over a little bridge, that crossed a running stream behind the
main court, into a garden full of violets, through which we passed
to stables as airy, as light and as dry as the best European
stables could have been. In the stalls stood two lovely AraD
mares from the famous studs of the Ruwalla and a well-bred
mule almost as valuable as they. There was a sad-looking

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 147

man who accompanied us upon our roimd, though he did not
seem to belong to the estabhshment ; his face was so gloomy
that it arrested my attention, and I asked Selim Beg who he was.
A Christian, he answered, of a rich family, who had been
persecuted to change his religion and had sought sanctuary
with the Amir 'A'i. I heard no more of his story, but he fitted
into the picture that 'Abd ul Kadir's dwelling-place left upon
the mind : the house of gentlefolk, well kept by well-trained
servants, provided with the amenities of life and offering
protection to the distressed.

On the following morning I went to see the Am'ir 'Ab-
dullah, who lived next door to his brother. I found there a
nephew of 'Abdullah's, the Amir Tahir, son of yet another
brother, and my arrival was greeted with satisfaction because
there happened to be staying with them a distinguished guest
whom I should doubtless like to see. He was a certain Sheikh
Tahir ul Jezairi, a man much renowned for his learning
and for his tempestuous and revolutionary politics. Sum-
moned hastily into the divanned and carpeted upper room
in which we were sitting, he entered like a whirlwind, and
establishing himself by my side poured into my ear, and into
all other ears in the vicinity, for he spoke loud, his distress
at not being permitted by the Vali to associate freely with gifted
foreigners such as the American archaeologists or even myself
(" God forbid ! " I murmured modestly), and a great many
other grievances besides. When this topic had rim com-
paratively dry, he sent the Amir Tahir to seek for some pub-
lications of his own with which he presented me. They dealt
with Arabic and the allied languages, such as Nabataean,
Safaitic and Phoenician, the alphabetical signs of which he had
arranged very carefully and well in comparative tables, though
he had not an idea of the signification of any one of the tongues
except his own. A curious and typical example of oriental
scholarship was Sheikh Tahir, but from the samples I had of his
conversation I am not sure that the sympathies of those who
respect peace and order would notbewith the Vali. Presently
another notable dropped in, Mustafa Pasha el Barazi, a member
of one of the four leading families of Hamah, and the whole
company fell to talking of their own concerns, Syrian politics

148 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

and other matters, while I listened and looked out of window
over the Amir's garden and the stream at its foot, and wondered
what had made me so fortunate as to be taking part, in a
Damascene morning call. At length the Amir 'Abdullah and
his nephew took me aside and discussed long and earnestly a
great project which I had broached to them and which I will not
reveal here. And when the visit was over Selim and Mustafa
and I went out and limched at an excellent native restaurant
in the Greek bazaar, sitting cheek by jowl with a Bedouin
from the desert and eating the best of foods and the choicest
of Damascus cream tarts for the sum of eighteenpence between
the three of us, which included the coffee and a liberal tip.

There was another morning no less pleasant when I went
with the faithful Selim to pay my respects on a charming old
man, the most famous scribe in all the city, Mustafa el Asba'i
was his name. He lived in a house decorated with the ex-
quisite taste of two hundred years ago inlaid with coloured
marbles and overlaid with gesso duro worked in patterns
like the frontispiece of an illuminated Persian manuscript and
painted in soft rich colours in which gold and golden brown
predominated. We were taken through the reception rooms
into a little chamber on an upper floor where Mustafa was
wont to sit and write those texts that are the pictures of the
Moslem East. It was hung round with examples from cele-
brated hands ancient and modern, among which I recog-
nised that of my friend Muhammad 'Ali, son of Beha Ullah
the Persian prophet, to my mind the most skilful penman of
our day, though Oriental preference goes out to another Persian
of the same religious sect, Mushkin Kalam, and him also I
count among my friends. We sat on cushions and drank
coffee, turning over the while exquisite manuscripts of all
dates and countries, some written on gold and some on silver,
some on brocade and some on supple parchment (several
of these last being pages of Kufic texts abstracted from the
Kubbet el Khazneh before it was closed), and when we rose
to go Mustafa presented me with three examples of his own
art, and I carried them off rejoicing.

Later in the afternoon we drove out to the valley of the
Barada, Selim and I, and called on a third son of 'Abd ul

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 149

KSdir : " Amir Omar, princ d'AM ul Kadir " ran his visiting
card, printed in the Latin character. He is the country
gentleman of the family. 'Ali has been carried into spheres
of greater influence by his marriage with a sister of 'Izzet
Pasha, the mighty Shadow behind the Throne in Constanti-
nople ; 'Abdullah has
always a thousand
schemes on hand that
keep him to the town,
but 'XJmar is content
to hunt and shoot
and tend his garden
and lead the simple
life. So simple was
it that we found him
in a smoking cap and
a dressing gown and
carpet sUppers walk-
ing the garden alleys.
He took us into his
house, which, like the
other houses of his
family, was full of
flowers, and up to a
pavilion on the roof,
whither his pointer

followed us with a mushkin kalau

friendly air of com-
panionship. There amid pots of hyacinths and tulips we
watched the sun set over the snowy hills and talked of desert
game and sport.

Nor let me, amid all this high company, forget my hum-
bler friends : the Afghan with black locks hanging about his
cheeks, who gave me the salute every time we met (the Amir
of Afghanistan has an agent in Damascus to look after the
welfare of his subjects on the pilgrimage) ; the sweetmeat
seller at the door of the Great Mosque, who helped me once or
twice through the mazes of the bazaars and called to me each
time I passed him ; " Has your Excellency no need of your

ISO THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

Dragoman to-day ? " ; or the dervishes of Sheikh Hassan's
Tekyah, who invited me to attend the Friday prayers.
Not least the red-bearded Persian who keeps a tea shop in the
Com Market and who is a member of the Beha'i sect among
which I have many acquaintances. As I sat drinking glasses
of delicious Persian tea at his table, I greeted him in his
own tongue and whispered : "I have been much honoured
by the Holy Family at Acre." He nodded his head and
smiled and answered : " Your Excellency is known to
us," and when I rose to go and asked his charge he replied :
" For you there is never anything to pay." I vow there is
nothing that so warms the heart as to find yourself admitted
into the secret circle of Oriental beneficence — and few things
so rare.

Upon a sunny afternoon I escaped from the many people
who were always in waiting to take me to one place or
another and made my way alone through the bazaars, ever
the most fascinating of loitering grounds, till I reached the
doors of the Great Mosque. It was the hour of the afternoon
prayer. I left my shoes with a bed-ridden negro by the
entrance and wandered into the wide cloister that runs along
the whole of the west side of the Mosque. A fire some ten
years ago, and the reparations that followed it, have robbed
the Mosque of much Ol its beauty, but it still remains the
centre of interest to the archaeologist, who puzzles over the
traces of church and temple and Heaven knows what be-
sides that are to be seen embedded in its walls and gates.
The court was half full of afternoon shadow and half of sun,
and in the golden light troops of little boys with green willow
switches in their hands were running to and fro in noiseless
play, while the Faithful made their first prostrations before
they entered the Mosque. I followed them in and watched
them fall into long lines down nave and aisle from east to
west. All sorts and grades of men stood side by side, from
the learned doctor in a fur-lined coat and silken robes to the
raggedest camel driver from the desert, for Islam is the only
republic in the world and recognises no distinctions of wealth
or rank. When they had assembled to the number of three
or four hundred the chant of the Imam began. " God ! **
he cried, and the congregation fell with a single movement

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

15^

upon their faces and remained a full minute in silent adoration
till the high chant began again. " The Creator of this world
and the next, of the heavens and of the earth. He who leads
the r ghteous in the true path and the wicked to destruction :
God ! " And as the almighty
name echoed through the colon-
nades where it had sounded for
ncEir two thousand years, the
listeners prostrated themselves
again, and for a moment all
the sanctuary was silence.

That night I went to an
evening party at the invita-
tion of Shekib el Arslan, a
Dnize of a well known family
of the Lebanon and a poet
foreby — have I not been pre-
sented with a copy of his latest
ode ? The party was held in
the Maidan, at the house of
some com merchants, who are
agents to the Hauran Druzes
in the matter of com selling
and know the pohtics of the
Mountain we'l. There were
twelve or fourteen persons pre-
sent. Shekib and I and the
com merchants {dressed as be-
fits well-to-do folk in blue silk
robes and embroidered yellow
turbans) and a few others, I
know not who they were. The room was blessedly empty of
all but carpets and a divan and a brazier, and this was note-
worthy, for not even the 'Abd ul Kadir houses are free from
blue and red glass vases and fringed mats that break out
like a hideous disease in the marble embrazures and on the
shelves of the gesso duro cupboards. Shekib was a man of
education and had experience of the world ; he had even
travelled once as far as London. He talked in French until
one of our hosts stopped him with :

152 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

" Oh, Shekib ! you know Arabic, the lady also. Talk
therefore that we can understand."

His views on Turkish politics were worth hearing.

" My friends," said he, " the evils under which we suffer
are due to the foreign nations who refuse to allow the Turkish
empire to move in any direction. When she fights they take
the fruits of her victory from her, as they did after the war
with the Greeks. What good is it that we should conquer
the rebellious Albanians ? the Bulgarians alone would gain
advantage and the followers of our Prophet (stc, though he
was a Druze) could not live under the hand of the Bulgarians
as they would not live under the hand of the Greeks in Crete.
For look you, the Moslems of Crete are now dwelling at
Salahiyyeh as you know well, and Crete has suffered by their
departure."

There was so much truth in this that I who listened wished
that the enemies of Turkey could hear and would deeply
ponder the point of view of intelligent and well-informed
subjects of the Ottoman Empire.

My last day in Damascus was a Friday. Now Damascus
on a fine Friday is a sight worth travelling far to see. All
the male population dressed in their best parade the streets,
the sweetmeat sellers and the auctioneers of second-hand
clothes drive a roaring trade, the eating shops steam with
dressed meats of the most tempting kind, and splendidly
caparisoned mares are galloped along the road by the river
Abana. Early in the afternoon I had distinguished visitors.
The first to wait on me was Muhammad Pasha, Sheikh of
Jeriid, an oasis half way upon the road to Palmyra. Jerudi
is the second greatest brigand in all the land, the greatest
(no one disputes him the title) being Fayyad Agha of Karya-
tein, another oasis on the Palmyra road. Fayyad, I fancy,
is an evil rogue, though he had been polite enough to me
when 1 had passed his way, but Jerudi's knavery is of a
different brand. He is a big, powerful man with a wall
eye ; he was a mighty rider and raider in his day, for he
has Arab blood in his veins, and his grandfather was of the
high stock of the 'Anazeh, but he has grown old and heavy
and gouty, and his desire is for peace, a desire difficult to

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 153

attain, what with his antecedents and the outlying position
of Jerud, which makes it the natural resort of all the turbulent
spirits of the desert. He must keep on terms both with his
Arab kin and with the government, each trying to use his
influence with the other, and he the while seeking to profit
from both, with his wall eye turned towards the demands
of the aw, and his good eye fixed on his own advantage.

if I understand him. Justly irate consuls have several times
demanded of the Vali his immediate execution ; but the Vali,
though he not infrequently signifies his disapproval of some
markedly outrageous deed by a term of imprisonment, can never
be brought to take the further step, saying that the govern-
ment has before now found Jerudi a useful man, and no doubt
the Vali is the best judge. To his great sorrow Muhammad
Pasha has no sons to inherit his very considerable wealth, and
the grasshopper, in the shape of a tribe of expectant nephews,
has come to be a burden on his years. Recently he married a
daughter of Fayyad's house, a girl of fifteen, but she has not
brought him children. A famous tale about him is current
in Damascus, a tale to which men do not, however, allude
in his presence. At the outbreak of the last Druze war

154 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

Jeriidi happened to be enjoying one of his interludes ot ad-
hesion to the powers that be, and because he knew the Moun-
tain well he was sent with thirty or forty men to scout and
report, the army following upon his heels. It happened
that as he passed through a hamlet near Orman, his old
acquaintance, the sheikh of the village, saw him, and invited

him in to eat. And as he sat in the mak'ad awaiting his
dinner he heard the Druzes discussing outside whether they
had not better profit by this opportunity to kill him as an
officer of the Turkish army; and he desired earnestly to go
away from that place, but he could not, the rules of pohte
society making it incumbent upon him to stay and eat the
dinner that was a-cooking. So when it came he despatched
it with some speed, for the discussion outside had reached a
stage that inspired him with the gravest anxiety, and having
eaten he mounted his horse and rode away before the Dnizes
had reached a conclusion. And as he went he found himself
suddenly between two fires ; the Turkish army had come
up and the firet battle of the war had begun. He and his
men, discouraged and perplexed, took refuge behind some

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 155

rocks, and, as best they might, they made their way back
one by one to the extreme rear of the Turkish troops. The
Druzes have composed a song about this incident ; it begins :
Jerudi's golden mares are famed,
And fair the riders in their stumbling fiigtt I
Muhammad Pasha, tell thy lord
Where are his soldiers, where his arms I
This piece is not often sung before him.
My next visitor was Sheikh Hassan Nakshibendi, he of
the sleek and cimning clerical face. He contrived to make

THE TEKVAII OF NAKSHIBENDI

good use even of the ten minutes he spent in the inn parlour,
for noticing a gaudy ring on Selim Beg'S finger he asked to
see it, and liked it so well that he put it in his pocket saying
that Selim would certainly wish to give a present to his
khSnum, the youngest of his wives, whom he had married a
year or two before. Selim replied that in that case we must
go at once to his house in Salahiyyeh that the present might
be offered, and both Sheikh Hassan and Muhammad Pasha
having their victorias at the doorj we four got into them and
drove off to Salahiyyeh through the bright holiday streets.
At the door of the house Selim announced that I ought first
to take leave of the Vali, who lived close at hand, and bor-
rowed Jeriidi's carriage that we might go in style. Then
said Selim to Muhammad Pasha :

156 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

" Are you not coming with us ? " But the question was
put in sarcasm, for he knew well that Jerudi was going through
a period of disgrace and that he had but recently emerged from
a well-merited imprisonment.

Jerudi shook his head and drawing near to us, seated in
his victoria, he whispered :

" Say something in my favour to the Pasha."

We laughed and promised to speak for him, though Selim
confided to me as we drove away that when he had been in
disgrace (" entirely owing to the intrigues of my enemies"),
not a man had come forward to help him, while now that he
was in favour every one begged for his intervention ; and he
drew his frock coat round him and lent back against the
cushions of Jerudi's carriage with the air of one who is proudly
conscious that he is in a position to fulfil scriptural injunctions
to the letter.

Nazim Pasha was on his doorstep taking leave of the com-
mander-in-chief. When he saw us he came down the steps
and called us in with the utmost friendliness. The second
visit to his house (he had been to see me in between) was much
less formal than the first. We talked of the Japanese War, a
topic never far from the lips of my interlocutors, great or
small, and I made bold to ask him his opinion.

" Officially," said he, " I am neutral."

" But between friends ? "

" Of course I am on the side of the Japanese," he an-
swered. And then 'he added : " It is you who have gained
by their victory."

I replied : " But will you not also gain ? "

He answered gloomily : " We have not gained as yet.
Not at all in Macedonia."

Then he asked how I had enjoyed my visit to Damascus.
Selim replied hastily :

" To-day she has had a great disappointment."

The Vali looked concerned.

" Yes," continued Selim, " she had hoped to see a chief
of brigands, and she has found only a peaceful subject of
your Excellency."

" Who is he ? " said Nazim

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 157

" Muhammad Pasha Jerudi," answered SelJm. The good
word had been spoken very skilfully.

When we returned to Sheikh Hassan's house we related
this conversation to the subject of it, and Jerudi pulled a wry
face, but expressed himself satisfied. Sheikh Hassan then
took me to see his wife — his fifth wife, for he had divorced
one of the legal four to marry her. He has the discretion to
keep a separate establishment for each, and I do not question
that he is repaid by the resulting peace of his hearths. There

were three women in the inner room, the wife and another
who was apparently not of the household, for she hid her face
under the bed-clothes when Sheikh Hassan came in, and a
Christian, useful in looking after the male guests (there were
others besides Jeriidi and Sellm) and in doing commissions in
the bazaars, where she can go more freely than her sister
Moslems. The harem was shockingly untidy. Except when
the women folk expect your visit and have prepared for it,
nothing is more forlornly unkempt than the r appearance.'
The disorder of the rooms in which they live may partly
be accounted for by the fact that there are neither cupboards
nor drawers in them, and all possessions are kept in large
green and gold boxes, which must be unpacked when so much
as a pocket-handkerchief is needed, and frequently remain ■
unpacked. Sheikh Hassan's wife was a young and pretty
woman, though her hair dropped in wisps about her face and
neck, and a dirty dressing-gown clothed a figure which had,
alas 1 already fallen into ruin.

158 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

But the view from Nakshibendi's balcony is immortal.

The great and splendid city of Damascus, with its gardens
and its domes and its minarets, lies spread out below, and
beyond it the desert, the desert reaching almost to its gates.
And herein is the heart of the whole matter.

This- is what I know of Damascus ; as for the churches
and the castles, the gentry can see those for themselves.

CHAPTER VIII

The Vali had inquired of me closely whither I was going
from Damascus, and when I 1 old him that Ba'albek was my
goal he had replied that he nr \st certainly send a small body
of armed men to guard so distinguished a traveller. There-
upon I had answered quickly, so as to avoid further discussion,
that I should go by train. But as I had in reality no inten-
tion of adopting that means of progression it was necessary to
make an early start if I would journey alone. We left the
city on a bright and sunny morning ; the roads were full of
cheerful wayfarers, and our horses tugged at the bits after the
week's rest. We passed by the Amir 'Umar's house in the
Wadi Barada, and saw that nobleman enjoying the morning
sun upon his roof. He shouted down' to me an invitation
to enter, but I replied that there was business on hand, and
that he must let me go.

"Go in peace ! " he answered. " Please God some day
we may ride together."

" Please God ! " said I, and " God requite you ! "
A mile or two further we came to a parting of the ways
and I altered my route and struck straight into the Anti-
Libanus the better to avoid the attentions of all the official
personages who had been warned to do me honour. We rode
up the beautiful valley of the Barada, which is full of apricots
(but they were not yet in flower), crossed the river above Suk
Wadi Barada, a splendid gorge, and journeyed over a plain
between snowy mountains to Zebdany, famous for its apples.
Here we pitched a solitary camp in a green ^meadow by a
spring, the snowy flanks of Hermon closing the view to the
south and the village scattered over the hill slopes to the
north, and no one in Zebdany paid any attention to the
two small tents. Next day we crossed the Anti-Libanus

i6o THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

in a howling wind ; a very lovely and enjoyable ride it was
nevertheless, but a long stage of eight and a quarter
hours. There were Latin inscriptions cut at intervals in the
rocks all down the valley that falls into the Yahfufa at Janta
— I imagine we were on the Roman road from Damascus to
Ba'albek. The last long barren miles were done in driving
rain and we arrived wet through at Ba'albek. It was almost
too windy to pitch a camp, and yet my soul revolted against
the thought of a hotel ; fortunately, Mikhail suggested a
resource. He knew, said he, a decent Christian woman who
lived at the entrance of the village and who would doubtless
give us a lodging. It happened as he had predicted. The
Christian woman was delighted to see us. Her house contained
a clean empty room which was speedily made ready for my
camp furniture, Mikhail established himself and his cooking
gear in another, the wind and the rain beat its worst against
the shutters and could do us no harm.

The name of liiy hostess was Kurunfuleh, the Carnation
Flower, and she was wife to one Yusef el 'Awais, who is at
present seeking his fortune in America, where she wishes to
join him. I spent an hour or two with her and her son and
daughter and a few relations who had dropped in for a little
talk and a little music, bringing their lutes with them. They
told me that they were very anxious about their future. The
greater part of the population of Ba'albek and round about
belongs to an unorthodox sect of Islam, called the Metawileh,
which has a very special reputation for fanaticism and igno-
rance. These people, when thfv heard of the Japanese vic-
tories, would come and shake their fists at their Christian
neighbours, saying : " The Christians are suffering defeat !
See now, we too will shortly drive you out and seize your
goods." Mikhail joined in, and declared that it was the same
thing at Jerusalem. There, said he (I know not with what
truth), the Moslems had sent a deputation to the Mufti, saying :
"The time has come for us to turn the Christians out." But
the Mufti answered : "If you raise a disturbance the nations
of Europe will step in, for Jerusalem is the apple of their
eye " (so the Mufti affirmed), '' and they will take the whole
land and we shall be worse off than before." I tried to com-

SUK V/iVl BARADA

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 163

fort Kurunfuleh by saying that it was improbable that the
Christians of Syria should suffer persecution, the country
being so well known and so much frequented by tourists,
who would not fail to raise an outcry. The yearly stream of
tourists is, in fact, one of the best guarantees of order. Now
Kurunfuleh was a Lebanon woman, and I asked her why she
did not return to her own village, where she would be under
the direct protection of the Powers and exempt from danger.
She said :

" Oh lady, the house here is taken in my husband's name,
and I cannot sell it unless he return, nor yet leave it empty,
and moreover the life in the Lebanon is not like the life in the
plain, and I, being accustomed to other things, could not
endure it. There no one has any business but to watch his
neighbour, and if you put on a new skirt the village will whisper
together and mock ^ at you saying, ' Hast seen the lady ? '
Look you, I will show you what it is like to live in the Lebanon.
I eat meat in Ba'albek once a day, but they once a month.
They take an onion and divide it into three parts, using one
part each evening to flavour the burghul (cracked wheat),
and I throw a handful of onions into the dish every night.
Life pinches in the Lebanon."

Life pinches so straitly that all of the population that
can scrape together their passage money are leaving for the
United States, and it is next to impossible to find labour to
cultivate the corn, the mulberry and the vine. There is no
advancement, to use the Syrian phrase. The Lebanon pro-
vince is a cut de sac, without a port of its own and without
commerce. True, you need not go in fear of death, but of
what advantage is an existence that offers no more than the
third of an onion at supper time? As usual, the Sublime
Porte has been too many for the Powers. It has accorded
all they asked, oh yes, and gladly, but the concessions that
seemed to lay open the path of prosperity have in reality
closed the gates for ever upon those who should have profited
by them.

Next day the rain had not abated. I received the Com-
missioner of Police, who had run me to earth — ^he proved
to be a charming man — ^and paid a visit to a large family of

1 64 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

Portuguese who were staying at the hotel hard by my lodging.
Monsieur Luiz de Sommar, with his wife and daughters and
nephews, had come up from Jerusalem to Damascus by the
Jebel Druze. I had heard of their arrival at Sweida while I
was at Salkhad, and had wondered how they had gained
admission. The story was curious and it redounds to the credit
of Monsieur de Sommar, while it shows how eager the Govern-
ment still is to keep the Mountain free from the prying eyes of
tourists. The Portuguese family had met Mr. Mark Sykes
at 'Amman, and he had advised them to change their route so
as to pass through Kanawat in the Jebel Druze, saying they
would have no difficulty in obtaining permission to do so.
Monsieur de Sommar went guilelessly forward, but when he
reached Sweida, which is the chief post of the Government,
the Kaimakam stopped him and intimated politely but firmly
that he must return the way he had come. He replied as
firmly that he would not, and sent telegrams to his Consul
in Damascus and his Minister at Constantinople. Thereupon
followed an excited exchange of messages, the upshot of which
was that he was to be allowed to proceed to Kanawat if he
would take a hundred zaptiehs with him. The country, said
the Kaimakam, was extremely dangerous — that country
through which, as I know well, a woman can ride with no escort
but a Druze boy, and might ride alone, even if she had her
saddle-bags full of gold. But Monsieur de Sommar was a
man of judgment. He replied that he was quite willing to
take the hundred zaptiehs, but not one piastre piece should
they receive from him. Thus countered, the Kaimakam
changed his note and diminished the escort till it numbered
twenty, with which guard the de Sommars reached Kanawat
in safety. I congratulated them on their exploit, and myself
on having sought my permit from Fellah ul 'Isa, and not from
the Vali of Syria.

In spite of the rain, the day at Ba'albekwas not mis-spent.
Since my last visit the Germans had excavated the Temple of
the Sun and laid bare altars, fountains, bits of decoration and
foundations of churches, which were all of the deepest interest.
Moreover, the great group of temples and enclosing walls
set between the double range of mountains, Lebanon and

^trm-

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 167

Anti-Libanus, produces an impression second to none save the
Temple group of the Athenian Acropohs, which is easily beyond
a peer. , The details of Ba'albek are not so good as those at
Athens ; the matchless dignity and restraint of that glory
among the creations of architects are not to be approached, nor
is the splendid position on the hill top overlooking the blue

sea and the Gulf of Salamis to be rivalled. But in general
effect Ba'albek comes nearer to it than any other mass of build-
ing, and it provides an endless source of speculation to such as
busy themselves with the combination of Greek and Asiatic
genius that produced it and covered its doorposts, its archi-
traves and its capitals with ornamental devices infinite in variety
as they are lovely in execution. For the archa'ologist there is
neither clean nor unclean. All the works of the human
imagination fall into their appointed place in the history of
art, directing and illuminating his own understanding of it.
He is doubly blest, for when the outcome is beautiful to the
eyes he returns thanks; but, whatever the restilt, it is sure to
furnish him with some new and unexpected link between one
art and another, and to provide him with a further rung in the

i68 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

ladder of history. He is thus apt to be well satisfied with
what he sees, and above all, he does not say : " Alas, alas !
these dogs of Syrians ! Phidias would have done so and so ; "
for he is glad to mark a new attempt in the path of artistic
endeavour, and a fresh breath moving the acanthus leaves
and the vine scrolls on capital and frieze.

Our departure from Ba'albek was marked by a regrettable
occurrence — ^my dog Kurt was found to have disappeared in
the night. Unlike most Syrian pariah dogs, he was of a very
friendly disposition, he was also (and in this respect he did not
differ from his half- fed clan) insatiably greedy ; the probability
was, therefore, that he had been lured away with a bone and
shut up till we were safely out of the road. Habib set off in
one direction through the village, Mikhail in another, while
the Commissioner of Police, who had appeared on the agitated
scene, tried to pour balm upon my wounded feelings. After
a few minutes Habib reappeared with Kurt, all wag, behind
him on a chain. He had found him, he explained breathlessly,
in the house of one who had thought to steal him, fastened
with this very chain :

" And when Kurt heard my voice he barked, and I went
into the yard and saw him. And the lord of the chain de-
manded it of me, and by God ! I refused to give it him and
struck him to the earth with it instead. God curse him for a
thievish Metawileh ! And so I left him."

I have, therefore, the pleasure to record that the Metawileh
are as dishonest a sect as rumour would have them to be, but
that their machinations can be brought to nought by vigilant
Christians.

We rode down the wide and most dreary valley between
Lebanon and Anti-Libanus. I might have gone by train to
Homs, and eke to liamah, but I preferred to cross from side
to side of the valley as the fancy took me, and visit such places
of interest as the country had to show, and this could only
be done on horseback. North of Ba'albek all Syria was new
to me ; it marked an epoch, too, that we had reached the
frontier of the Palestine Exploration Map. I now had recourse
to Kiepert's small but excellent sheet, which I had abstracted
from the volume of Oppenheim that had been left at Saleh.

COLUMNS OF THE TEMPLE OF THE SUN. BA'ALCEK

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 171

There is no other satisfactory map until, at a line some thirty
miles south of Aleppo, Kiepert's big Kleinasien 1-400,000
begins ; when the American Survey publishes its geographical
volume the deficiency will, I hope, be rectified. After four
and a half hours we came to Lebweh, where one of the principal
sources ol the Orontes bursts out of the earth in a number of
springs, very beautiful to see ; and here we were overtaken by
two soldiers who had been sent after us by the Kaimakam
with a polite inquiry as to whether I would not like an escort.
I sent one back and kept the other, fearing to hurt the Kai-
makam's feelings ; Derwish was the man's name, helpful and
pleasant he proved, as indeed were all in the long series of his
successors who accompanied us imtil I stepped into the train
at Konia. Some of them added greatly to the pleasure of the
journey, telling me many tales of their experiences and adven-
tures as we rode together hour by hour. They enjoyed the
break in garrison life that was thus afforded them, and they
enjoyed also the daily fee of a mejideh (4s. roughly) which was
so much more certain than the Sultan's pay. I gave them
besides a little tip when they reached the term of their services,
and they fed themselves and their horses on provisions and
grain that I shrewdly suspect were taken from the peasantry
by force, a form of official exaction that the traveller is power-
less to prevent.

At Lebweh are the ruins of a temple built in the massive
masonry of Ba'albek. A podium of four great courses of stones
crowned by a simple moulding, a mere splay face, is all that is
left of it. The village belongs to a man called Asad Beg, a
rich Metawlleh and brother to a certain Dr. Haida, who is a
ubiquitous person well known in north Syria. I never go to
Damascus without meeting him and never meet him without
satisfaction, for he is well read in Arabic literature and excep-
tionally intelligent. He has recently been engaged in some
job on the Mecca railway, and he is, so far as I know, the only
example in his sect of a man who has received a good education
and risen to a certain distinction.

We pitched camp at Ras Ba'albek, where there is an excel-
lent spring in a gorge of the barren eastern hills an hour and a
half from Lebweh. The frost had ceased to pinch us of a

172 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

morning, praise be to God ! but it was still cold. When we
rose at dawn the sleet was beating against the tents and we
rode all day in the devil's own wind. This was March 8 ;
Spring travels slowly into Northern Syria. I sent my camp
by the direct path and rode with Derwish to a monument that
stands on some rising ground in the middle of the Orontes
valley and which in that desolate expanse is seen for a day's
journey on either side. It is a tall tower of massive stone-
work capped by a pyramid and decorated with pilasters and
a rough frieze carved in low relief with hunting scenes and
trophies of arms. The Syrians call it Kamu'a Hurmul, the
Tower of Hurmul, after the village close by, and the learned are
of opinion that it commemorates some great battle of the
Roman conquest, but there is no inscription to prove them
right or wrong. It lies two hours to the west of Ras Ba'albek.
Buffeted by the furious wind we rode on another hour and a
half to a line of little mounds protecting the air-holes of an
underground water channel — a Kanat it would be called in
Persian, and I believe is so called in Arabic. Another two and
a half hours brought us to Kseir, the mules came up a quarter
of an hour later, and we camped hard by the cemetery outside
the ugly mud-built town. The wind dropped after sunset,
and peace, moral and physical, settled down upon the camp.
Even Mikhail's good humour had been somewhat disturbed
by the elements, but Habib had come in as smiling as ever, and
I am glad to remember that I, feeling my temper slipping from
me down the gale, had preserved the silence of the philosopher.
Muhammad the Druze was no longer with us, for he had been
left behind m Damascus. Whether through his own fault
or by reason of a conspiracy against him among the others,
difficulties and quarrels were always arising, and it was better
to sacrifice one member of the staff and preserve the equanimity
of the caravan. My contract with him ceased at Damascus ;
we parted on the best of terms, and his place was taken by a
succession of hirelings, indistinguishable, as far as I was con-
cerned, the one from the other.

The valley of the Orontes v/as formerly an Arab camping
ground and is still frequented in dry seasons by a few skeikhs
of the Haseneh and of the 'Anazeh, particularly by the

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 175

Ruwalla branch of the latter tribe, but the bulk of the Bedouin
have been driven out by cultivation. The Kamu'a Hurmul
bears the record of them in the shape of ancient tribe marks.
It was more curious to reflect that we were in the southern
headquarters of the Hittites, whoever they may have been ;
the famous examples of their as yet undecyphered script
which were found at Hamah are now lodged in the museum
at Constantinople, where they have baffled all the efforts of the
learned. The present population of Kseir is composed partly
of Christians and partly of the members of a sect called the
Nosairiyyeh. They are not recognised by Islam as orthodox,
though, like all the smaller sects, they do their best to smooth
away the outward differences between themselves and the
dominant creed. They keep the tenets of their faith secret
as far as possible, but Dussaud has pried into the heart of them
and foimd them full of the traces of Phoenician tradition.
Living apart in moimtain fastnesses that have remained almost
inviolate, the Nosairiyyeh have held on to the practices of
ancient Semitic cults, and they occupy an honourable position
in the eyes of Syriologists as the direct descendants of paganism,
while remaining themselves profoundly ignorant of their
ancestry. Native report speaks ill of their religion, following
the invariable custom by which people whisper scandal of what
they are not allowed to understand, and I was told that the
visible signs of it as expressed by the conduct of the sect left
everything to be desired. Dussaud has, however, washed away
the stain that lay upon their faith, and my experience of their
dealings with strangers leads me to adopt an attitude of bene-
volent neutrality. I spent five days in the mountains west
of Homs and a week near Antioch, in which districts they are
chiefly to be found, and had no reason to raise a complaint.
Kurt was not so well pleased with the company in which he
found himself at Kseir. He kept up a continual barking all
night ; I could almost have wished him back in the court-
yard of the MetawUeh.

Next day the weather was gloriously fine. With Mikhail
I made a long circuit that I might visit Tell Nebi Mendu, which
is the site of Kadesh on the Orontes, the southern capital of
the Hittites. Kadesh in its day must have been a fair city.

176 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

The mound on which it was built rises out of a great corn-
growing plain ; to the saath the wide valley of the Orontes
runs up between the twin chains of Lebanon, to the west the
Jebel Nosairiyyeh piotect it from the sea, and between the
ranges of Lebanon and the Nosairiyyeh mountains there is a
smiling lowland by which merchants and merchandise might
pass down to the coast. Northwards to the horizon stretch
the plains of Coelo Syria ; the steppes of the Palmyrene desert
bound the view to the east. The foot of the tell is washed by
the young and eager Orontes (the Rebellious is the meaning of
its Arabic name), and in the immediate foregroimd lies the
lake of Homs, six miles long. The mound of Kadesh is ap-
proached by grassy swards, and among willow trees a mill-
wheel turns merrily in the rushing stream. The site must
have been inhabited almost continuously from Hittite times,
for history tells of a Seleucid city, Laodocia ad Orontem, and
there are traces of a Christian town. Each succeeding genera-
tion has built upon the dust of those that went before, and the
mound has grown higher and higher, and doubtless richer and
richer in the traces of them that lived on it. But it cannot be
excavated thoroughly owing to the miserable mud hovels that
have inherited the glories of Laodocia and Kadesh, and to the
little graveyard at the northern end of the village which,
according to the Moslem prejudice, must remain undisturbed
till Gabriel's trump rouses the sleepers in it. I noticed frag-
ments of columns and of very rough capitals lying about
among the houses, but my interest, while I stood upon the
mound, was chiefly engaged in picturing the battle fought
at Kadesh by the Hittite king against the Pharaoh of his time,
which is recorded in a famous series of hieroglyphs in Egypt.
A quarter of an hour's ride to the north of Tell Nebi Meridu
there is a singular earthwork which is explained by the Arabs
as being the Sefinet Nuh (Noah's Ark) and by archaeologists
as an Assyrian fortification, and the one account of its origin
has as much to support it as the other. It is a heap of earth,
four-square, its sides exactly oriented to the points of the com-
pass, standing some forty to fifty feet above the level of the
plain and surrounded by a ditch, the angles of which are still
sharp. We rode to the top of it, and found it to be an immense

CAPITALS IN THE TEMPt-E OF JUPITER, BAALBEK

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 179

platform of solid earth, about an eighth of a mile square, the
four comers raised a little as if there had been tovters upon
them, and tower and rampart and platform were alike covered
with springing com. Whoever raised it, Patriarch or Assyrian,
must have found it mighty tiresome to constract, but until a
few trenches have been cut across it the object that directed

his labours will rest undetermined. We rode down to the
lake and lunched by the lapping water on a beach of clean
shells. There are two mounds close to the shores, another a
mile or two out of Homs, while the castle of Homs itself was
built upon a fourth. They have all the appearance of being
artificial, and probably contain the relics of to\vns that were
sisters to Kadesh. The fertile plain east of the Orontes must
always have been able to support a large population, larger
perhaps in Hittite days than in our own. The day's ride had
lasted from 9.30 to 2 o'clock, with three-quarters of an hour
at Tell Nebi Mendu and half an hour by the lake.

We approached Homs through the cemeteries. That it
should be preceded by a quartt ■ of a mile of graves is not a
pecuharity of Homs, but a const mt feature of oriental town*.

i8o THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

Every city is guarded by battalions of the dead, and the hfe
of the town moves in and out through a regiment of turbaned
tombstones. It happened to be a Thursday when we came
to Horns, and Thursday is the weekly Day of All Souls in the
Mohammedan world. Groups of veiled women were laying
flowers upon the graves or sitting on the mounds engaged in
animated chat — the graveyard is the pleasure ground of Eastern
women and the playground of the children, nor do the gloomy
associations of the spot affect the cheerfulness of the visitors.
My camp was pitched in the outskirts of the city on a stretch
of green grass below the ruins of barracks built by Ibrahim
Pasha and destroyed immediately after his death by the Syrians,
who were desirous of obliterating every trace of his hated
occupation. All was ready for me, water boiling for tea and
a messenger from the Kaimakam in waiting to assure me
that my every wish should have immediate attention, in spite
of which I do not like the town of Homs and never of free will
shall I camp in it again. This resolution is due to the behaviour
of the inhabitants, which I will now describe.

The conduct of the Kaimakam was unexceptionable. I
visited him after tea, and found him to be an agreeable Turk,
with a little of the Arabic tongue and an affable address.
There were various other people present, turbaned muftis
and grave senators — we had a pleasant talk over our coffee.
When I rose to go the Kaimakam offered me a soldier to escort
me about the town, but I refused, saying that I had nothing to
fear, since I spoke the language. I was wrong : no knowledge
of Arabic would be sufficient to enable the stranger to express
his opinion of the people of Homs. Before I was well within the
bazaar the persecution began. I might have been the Pied
Piper of Hamelin from the way the little boys flocked upon my
heels. I bore their curiosity for some time, then I adjured
them, then I turned for help to the shopkeepers in the bazaars.
This was effective for a while, but when I was so unwary as to
enter a mosque, not only the little boys but every male in-
habitant of Homs (or so it seemed to my fevered imagination)
crowded in after me. They were not annoyed, they had no
wish to stop me, on the contrary they desired eagerly that I
should go on for a long time, that they might have a better

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN i8i

opportunity of watching me ; but it was more than I could
bear, and I fled back to my tents, pursued by some two hundred
pairs of inquisitive eyes, and sent at once for a zaptieh. Next
morning I was wiser and took the zaptieh with me from the
first. We climbed to the top of the castle mound to gain a
general idea of the town. Though it has no particular archi-
tectural beauty, Iiloms has a character of its own. It is built

of tufa, the big houses standing round courtyards adorned
with simple but excellent patterns of white limestone let into
the black walls. Sometimes the limestone is laid in straight
courses, making with the tufa alternate bars of black and white
like the fagade of Siena cathedral-. The mind is carried back
the more to Italy by the minarets, which are tall square towers,
for all the world like the towers of San Gimignano, except that
those of Homs are capped by a white cupola, very pretty and
effective. All that remained of the castle was Arabic in origin,
and so were the fortifications round the town, save at one place
to the east, where the Arab work seemed to rest on older founda-
tions. I saw no mass of building of pre-Mohammedan date but
one, a brick ruin outside the Tripoli gate which was certainly
Roman, the sole relic of the Roman city of Emesa. The castle
mound is also outside the town, and when I had completed

1 82 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

my general survey we entered by the western gate and went
sight-seeing. This is a process which takes time, for it is con-
stantly interrupted by pressing invitations to come in and drink
coffee. We passed by the Turkman Jami'a, where there are a
couple of Greek inscriptions built into the minaret and a sar-
cophagus, carved with bulls' heads and garlands, that serves
as a fountain. The zaptieh Was of opinion that I could not do
better than pay my respects to the Bishop of the Greek Ortho-
dox Church, and to his palace I went, but found that I was
still too early to see his lordship. I was entertained, how-
ever, on jam and water and coffee, and listened to the lamenta-
tions of the Bishop's secretary over the Japanese victories.
The Greek Orthodox Church held penitential services each
time that they received the news of a Russian defeat, and at
that moment they were kept busy entreating the Almighty
to spare the enemies of Christendom. The secretary deputed
a servant to show me the little church of Mar Elias, which con-
tains an interesting marble sarcophagus with Latin crosses
carved on the body of it and Greek crosses on the lid, a later
addition, I fancy, to a classical tomb. Outside the church I
met one called 'Abd ul Wahhab Beg, whom I had seen at the
Seraya when I was calling on the Kaimakam, and he invited
me into his house, a fine example of the domestic architecture
of Homs, the harem court being charmingly decorated with
patterns in limestone and basalt. When I came out, the zap-
tieh, who had grasped what sort of sight it was I wished to
see, announced that he would take me to the house of one
Hassan Beg Na'i, which was the oldest in Homs. Thither we
went, and as we passed through the narrow but remarkably
clean streets I noticed that in almost every house there was a
loom, whereon a weaver was weaving the striped silk for which
Homs is famous, while down most of the thoroughfares were
stretched the silken yams. The zaptieh said that the workers
were paid by the piece, and earned from seven to twelve piastres
a day (one to two shillings), a handsome wage in the East,
Living was cheap, he added ; a poor man could rent his house^
that is a single room, for a himdred piastres a year, and feed
his family on thirty to forty piastres a week or even less if
he had not many children.

THE DESERT AND THE SOW^l 185

Hassan Beg NS'i was a red-haired and red-bearded man,
with a hard-featured face of a Scotch lowland type. He was
not at all pleased to see me, but, at the instance of the zaptieh,
he slouched out of his bachelor quarters, where he was drinking
a Friday morning cup of coffee with his friends, took me across
the street to his harem, and left me with his womenkind, who
were as friendly as he was surly. They were, indeed, delighted

to have a visitor, for Hassan Beg is a strict master, and
neither his wife nor his mother nor any woman that is his is
allowed to put her nose out of doors, not even to take a walk
through the graveyard or to drive down to the meadow by
the Orontes on a fine summer afternoon. The harem had been
a very beautiful Arab house on the model of the houses of
Damascus. There werp plaster cupolas over the rooms and
Jver the liwan {the audience haJl at the bottom of the court),
but the plaster was chipping away and the floors and stair-
cases crumbled beneath the feet of those that trod them. A
marble column with an acanthus capital was built into one
wall, and on the floor of the liwan stood a big marble capital,
simple in style but good of its kind. It had been converted
into a water basin, and may have done duty as a font before

1 86 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

the Arabs took Emesa and after the earlier buildings of the
Roman town had begun to fall into decay and their materials
to be put to other uses. I passed as I went home a fine
square minaret, built of alternate bands of black and white.
The mosque or the Christian church to which the tower be-
longed had fallen ; it is reputed, said my zaptieh, to be the
oldest tower in the town. The mosque at the entrance of
the bazaar was certainly a church of no mean architectural
merit.

There was nothing more to see in Homs, and as the after-
noon was fine I rode down to the meadow by the Orontes,
the fashionable resort of all holiday makers in spring and
summer. The course of the Orontes leaves Horns a good mile
to the south-west, and the water supply is both bad and in-
sufficient, being derived from a canal that begins at the northern
end of the lake. The Marj ul 'Asi, the meadow of the Orontes,
is a good type of the kind of place in which the Oriental, be
he Turk or Syrian or Persian, delights to spend his leisure.
"Three things there are," says an Arabic proverb, " that ease
the heart from sorrow : water, green grass and the beauty of
women." The swift Orontes stream flowed by swards already
starred with daisies, where Christian ladies, most perfunctorily
veiled, alighted from their mules under willow trees touched with
the first breath of spring. The river turned a great Na'oura, a
Persian wheel, which filled the air with its pleasant rumbling.
A coffee maker had set up his brazier by the edge of the road,
a sweetmeat seller was spreading out his wares by the water-
side, and on a broader stretch of grass a few gaily dressed
youths galloped and wheeled Arab mares. The East made
holiday in her own simple and satisfactory manner, warmed by
her own delicious sun.

The rest of the afternoon was devoted to society and to
fruitless attempts to escape from the curiosity of the towns-
folk. It was a Friday afternoon, and no better way of spending
it occurred to them than to assemble to the number of many
hundreds round my tents and observe every movement of
every member of the camp. The men were bad enough, but
the women were worse and the children were the worst of all.
Nothing could keep them off, and the excitement reached a

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 189

climax ^hen 'Abd ul Hamed Pasha Draby, the richest man in
Homs, came to call, bringing with him the Kadi Muhammad
Said ul Khani. I could not pay as much attention to their
delightful and intelligent conversation as it deserved, owing
to the seethmg
crowd that sur-
rounded us, but
an hour later I
returned their call
at the Pasha's
fine new house at
the gate of the
town, accom-
panied thither by
at least three
hundred people.
I must have
breathed a sigh
of relief when
the door closed
upon my escort,
for as I estab-
lished myself in
the cool and quiet
liwan, 'Abd ul
Hamed said :

" Please God
the populace

, .J -Ul CEDARS OF LEBAj«ON

does not trouble

your Excellency ; for if so we will order out a regiment of

soldiers."

I murmured a half-hearted refusal of his offer, though I
would have been glad to have seen those little boys shot down
by volleys of musketry, and the Pasha added reflectively :

" The Emperor of the Germans when he was in Damascus
gave orders that no one was to be forbidden to come and gaze
on him."

With this august example before me I saw that 1 must bear
the penalties of greatness and foreigimess without complaint.

190 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

The talk turned on religious beliefs. I began by asking
about the Nosairiyyeh, but the Kadi pursed his lips and
answered :

" They are not pleasant people. Some of them pretend to
worship 'All and some worship the sun. They beUeve that
when they die
'■ ' ■ ■' their souls pass

into the bodies of
other men or even
animals, as it is
in the faiths of
India and of
China."

I said: "I

have heard a

story that they

tell of a man

who owned a

vineyard, and

the man died

and left it to his

son. Now the

young man

worked in the

vineyard until

the time off the

THE kamu'a hurmul h a t V c s t, and

when the grapes

,vere ripe a wolf entered in, and every evening he at^ the

iruit. And the young man tried to hunt him forth, and .

every evening he returned. And one night the wolf cried

aloud : ' Shall I not eat of the grapes who planted the vines ? '

And the young man was astounded and he said : ' Who

art thou ? ' The wolf replied : ' I am thy father.' The

young man answered ; ' If thou art indeed my father, where

did'st hide the pruning knife, for I have not found it since thy

soul left thy body ! ' Then the wolf took him to the place

where the pruning knife lay concealed, and he believed and

knew it was his father."

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 193

The Kadi dismissed the evidence.

" Without doubt they are mighty liars," said he.

I asked him next whether he had any acquaintance with
the Beha'is. He answered :

" As tor the Beha'is and others like them, your Excellency
knows that the Prophet {may God give him peace !) said that
there were seventy-two false creeds and but one true, and J

can tell you that of the seventy-two there are certainly fifty in
our country."

I replied that it appertained to prophets alone to distinguish
the true from the false, and that we in Europe, where there
were none to help us, found it a difficult task.

" In Europe," said the Kadi, " I have heard that the men
of science are your prophets."

"And they make answer that they know nothing," I
observed. " Their eyes have explored the stars, yet they cannot
tell us the meaning of the word infinity."

" If you speak of the infinite sky," remarked the KSdi,
" we know that it is occupied by seven heavens."

" And what beyond the seventh heaven ? "

" Does not your Excellency know that the number one is
the beginning of all things ? " said he. " When you have told

194 '^HE DESERT AND THE SOWN

me what comes before the number one, I will tell you what
lies beyond the seventh heaven."

The Pasha laughed and said that if the Kadi had
finished his argument he would like to ask me what was the
current opinion in Europe in the matter of thought-reading.
" For," said he, " a month ago a ring of price was stolen in my
house and I could not find the thief. Now a certain Effendi
among my friends, hearing of my case, came to me and said :
* I know a man in the Lebanon skilful in these things.' I said :
' Do me the kindness to send for him.' And the man came,
and he sought in Horns, until he foimd a woman gifted with
second sight, and he worked spells on her until she spoke and
said : * The thief is so-and-so, and he has taken the ring to his
house.' And we sought in the house and found the jewel.
This is my experience, for the event happened under my
eyes."

I replied that thought-readers in the Lebanon made a
better use of their gifts than any I had heard of in London,
and the Pasha said meditatively :

" It may be that the woman of the bazaar had a complaint
against the man in whose house we found the ring — God alone
knows, may His name be exalted ! "

And so we left it.

When I returned to my tent I found a visiting card on my
table, bearing the name and title, " Hanna Khabbaz, the
preacher of the Protestant Church at Horns." Beneath this
inscription was written the following message : " Madam, —
My wife and I are ready to do any service you need in the
name of Christ and the humanity. We should like to visit
you if you kindly accept us. I am, your obedient servant."
1 sent word that I would kindly accept them if they would
come at once, and they appeared before sundown, two friendly
people, very eager to offer me hospitality, of which I had no
opportunity to take advantage. I regretted it the less because
the Pasha and the Kadi had been good enough company for
one afternoon, and when 1 look back on the tumultuous visit
to IJoms, the hour spent with those two courteous and well-
bred Mohammadans stands out like the memory of a sheltered
spot in a gale of wind.

CHAPTER IX

We left next day at an early hour, but the people of Horns got
up to see us off. Nothing save the determination to afford
them no more amusement than I could help kept me outwardly
calm. In a quarter of an hour we had passed beyond the
Tripoli Gate, and the Roman brickwork, and beyond the range
of vision of the furthest sighted of the little boys ; the peaceful
beauty of the morning invaded our senses, and I turned to
make the acquaintance of the companions with whom the
Kaimakam had provided me. They were four in number, and
two of them were free and two were bound. The first two
were Kurdish zaptiehs ; one was charged to show me
the way to Kal'at el Husn, and the other to guard over
the second pair of my fellow travellers, a couple of prisoners
who had been on the Kaimakam's hands for some days past,
waiting until he could find a suitable opportunity, such as
that afforded by my journey, to send them to the for-
tress in the Jebel Nosairiyyeh, and so to the great prison at
Tripoli. They were clad, poor wretches, in ragged cotton
clothes and handcuffed together. As they trudged along
bravely through dust and mud, I proffered a word of sym-
pathy, to which they replied that they hoped God might pro-
long my life, but as for them it was the will of their lord the
Sultan that they should tramp in chains. One of the Kurds
interrupted with the explanation :

" They are deserters from the Sultan's army : may God
reward them according to their deeds ! Moreover, they are
Ismailis from Selemiyyeh, and they worship a strange god who
lives in the land of Hind. And some say she is a woman, and
for that reason they worship her. And every year she sends
an embassy to this country to collect the money that is due to
her, and even the poorest of the Ismailis provide her with a few

iq6 the desert and THE SOWN

piastres. And yet they declare that they are Muslims : who
knows what they believe ? Speak, oh Khudr, and tell us what
you believe.*'

The prisoner thus addressed repUed doggedly :

" We are Muslims ; " but the soldier's words had given me a
clue which I was able to follow up when the luckless pair crept
close to my horse's side and whispered :

" Lady, lady ! have you journeyed to the land of Hind ? "
Yes," said I.

May God make it Yes upon you ! Have you heard there
of a great king called the King Muhammad ? "

Again I was able to reply in the affirmative, and even to
add that I myself knew him and had conversed with him, for
their King Muhammad was no other than my fellow subject
the Agha Khan, and the religion of the prisoners boasted a
respectable antiquity, having been founded by him whom we
call the Old Man of the Mountain. They were the humble
representatives of the dreaded (and probably maligned) sect
of the Assassins.

Khudr caught my stirrup with his free hand and said
eagerly :

" Is he not a great king ? "

But I answered cautiously, for though the Agha Khan is
something of a great king in the modem sense, that is to say
he is exceedingly wealthy, it would have been difficult to ex-
plain to his disciples exactly what the polished, well-bred man
of the world was like whom I had last met at a London dinner
party, and who had given me the Marlborough Club as his
address. Not that these things, if they could have imder-
stood them, would have shocked them ; the Agha Khan is a
law unto himself, and if he chose to indulge in far greater
excesses than dinner parties his actions would be sanctified by
the mere fact that they were his. His father used to give
letters of introduction to the Angel Gabriel, in order to secure
for his clients a good place in Paradise ; the son, with his Eng-
lish education and his familiarity with European thought, has
refrained from exercising this privilege, though he has not
ceased to hold, in the opinion of his followers, the keys of
heaven. They show their belief in him in a substantial manner

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 197

by subscribing, in various parts of Asia and Africa, a liand-
some income that runs yearly into tens of thousands.

We rode for about an hour through gardens, meeting bands
of low-caste Arabs jogging into Homs on their donkeys with
milk and curds for the market, and then we came to the plain
beyond the Orontes, which is the home of these Arabs. The
plain had a familiar air; it was not dissimlar from the country

in the Druze hills, and like the Hauran it was covered with black
volcanic stones. It is a vast quarry for the city of Homs.
All the stones that are used for building are brought from
beyond the river packed on donkeys. They are worth a
metalik in the town (now a metallk is a coin too small to possess
a European counterpart), and a man with a good team can earn
up to ten piastres a day. In the Spring the only Arabs who
camp in lie Wa'r yoms, the Stony Plain of Homs, are a
despised race that caters for the needs of the city, for, mark you,
no Bedouin who respected himf.elf would earn a livelihood by
selling curds or by any other means except battle ; but in the
summer the big tribes such as the Haseneh settle there for a
few months, and after the harvest certain of the 'Anazeh who
feed their camels upon the stubble. These great folk are much

198 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

like salmon in a trout stream coming in from the open sea and
bullying the lesser fry. When we passed in March there was
a good deal of standing water in the plain, and grass and flowers
grew between the stones ; and as we journeyed westward, over
ground that rose gradually towards the hills, we came into
country that was like an exquisite garden of flowers. Pale
blue hyacinths lifted their clustered bells above the tufa
blocks, irises and red anemones and a yellow hawksweed and
a beautiful purple hellebore dotted the grass — all the bounties
of the Syrian Spring were scattered on that day beneath our
happy feet. For the first five hours we followed the carriage
road that leads to Tripoli, passing the khan that marks the
final stage before the town of Homs, and the boundary Une
between the vilayets of Damascus and of Beyrout ; then we
turned to the right and entered a bridle-path that lay over a
land of roUing grass, partly cultivated and fuller of flowers
than the edges of the road had been. The anemones were o(
every shade of white and purple, small blue irises clustered
by the path and yellow crocuses by the banks of the stream.
In the eyes of one who had recently crossed southern Syria
the grass was even more admirable than the flowers. The
highest summits of the Jebel Nosairiyyeh are clad with a verdure
that no fertile slope in Samaria or Judaea can boast. The
path mounted a little ridge and dropped down to a Kurdish
village, half Arab tent and half mud-built wall. The in-
habitants must have been long in Syria, for they had forgotten
their own tongue and spoke nothing but Arabic, though, like
the two zaptiehs, they spoke with the clipped accent of the
Kurd. Beyond the village a plain some three miles wide, the
Bkei'a, stretched to the foot of the steep buttress of the No-
.sairi5^eh hills, and from the very top of the mountain frowned
the great crusader fortress towards which* we were going.
The sun shone on its turrets, but a black storm was creeping
up behind it ; we could hear the thunder rumbling in the hills,
and jagged lightning shot through the clouds behind the castle.
The direct road across the Bkei'a was impassable for horse-
men, owing to the flooded swamps, which were deep enough,
said the villagers, to engulf a mule and its load ; we turned
therefore reluctantly to the right, and edged round the foot of

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 201

the hills. Before we had gone far we met two riders sent out
to welcome us by the Kaimakam of Kal'at el Husn, and as
they joined us the storm broke and enveloped us in sheets of
rain. Splashing through the mud and drenched with rain we
reached the foot of the hills at five o'clock, and here I left my
caravan to follow the road, and with one of the Kaimakam's
horsemen climbed by a steep and narrow bridle-path straight
up to the hill- top. And so at sunset we came to the Dark
Tower and rode through a splendid Arab gateway into a
vaulted corridor, built over a winding stair. It was almost
night within ; a few loopholes let in the grey dusk from outside
and provided the veriest apology for daylight. At intervals
we passed doorways leading into cavernous blackness. The
stone steps were shallow and wide but much broken ; the
horses stumbled and clanked over them as we rode up and up,
turned comer after comer, and passed under gateway after
gateway until the last brought us out into the courtyard in
the centre of the keep. I felt as though I were riding with
some knight of the Fairy Queen, and half expected to see
written over the arches : " Be bold ! " " Be bold ! " " Be
not too bold ! " But there was no magician in the heart of
the castle — nothing but a crowd of villagers craning their
necks to see us, and the Kaimakam, smiling and friendly,
announcing that he could not think of letting me pitch a camp
on such a wet and stormy night, and had prepared a lodging
for me in the tower.

The Kaimakam of Kal'at el Husn is a distinguished man
of letters. His name is 'Abd ul Hamid Beg Rafi'a Zadeh,
and his family comes from Egypt, where many of his cousins
are still to be found. He lives in the topmost tower of the
keep, where he had made ready a guest chamber commodiously
fitted with carpets and a divan, a four-post bedstead and a
mahogany wardrobe with looking-glass doors of which the
glass had been so splintered in the journey a-camel back from
Tripoh that it was impossible to see the smallest corner of
one's face in it. I was wet through, but the obligations of
good society had to be fulfilled, a^nd they demanded that we
should sit down on the divan and exchange polite phrases
while I drank glasses of weak tea. My host was preoccupied

ao2 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

and evidently disinclined for animated conversation — for a
good reason, as I subsequently found — but on my replying to
his first greeting he heaved a sigh of relief, and exclaimed :

" Praise be to God ! your Excellency speaks Arabic. We
had feared that we shovdd not be able to talk with you, and I
had already invited a Syrian lady who knows the English
tongue to spend the evening for the purpose of interpreting."

We kept up a disjointed chat for an hour while the damp
soaked more and more completely through my coat and skirt,
and it was not until long after the mules had arrived and their
packs had been unloaded that the Kaimakam rose and took
his departure, saying that he would leave me to rest. We had,
in fact, made a long day's march ; it had taken the muleteers
eleven hours to reach Kal'at el Husn. I had barely had time
to change my wet clothes before a discreet knocldng at the
inner door announced the presence of the womenfolk. I opened
at once and admitted a maid servant, and the wife of the
Kaimakam, and a genteel lady who greeted me in English
of the most florid kind. This last was the Sitt Ferldeh, the
Christian wife of the Government land surveyor, who is also a
Christian. She had been educated at a missionary school in
Tripoli, and I was not long left in ignorance of the fact that she
was an authoress, and that her greatest work was the translation
of the " Last Days of Pompeii " into Arabic. The Kaimakam's
wife was a young woman with apple cheeks, who would have
been pretty if she had not been inordinately fat. She was his
second wife ; he had married her only a month or two before,
on the death of his first, the mother of his children. She was so
shy that it was some time before she ventured to open her
lips in my presence, but the Sitt Ferldeh carried off the situa-
tion with a gushing volubility, both in English and in Arabic,
and a cheerful air of emphasising by her correct demeanour the
fervour of her Christianity. She was a pleasant and intelligent
woman, and I enjoyed her company considerably more than
that of my hostess. The first word that the Khanum ven-
tured to utter was, however, a welcome one, for she asked
when I would please to dine. I replied with enthusiasm that
no hour could be too early for me, and we crossed a muddy
courtyard and entered a room in which a bountiful meal had

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 203

been spread out. Here we were joined by an ancient dame who
was presented to me as " a friend who has come to gaze upon
your Excellency," and we all sat down to the best of dinners
eaten by one at least of the party with the best of sauces.
A thick soup and four enormous dishes of meat and vegetables,
topped by a rice pudding, composed the repast. When dinner

was over we returned to my room, a brazier full of charcoal
was brought in, together with hubble-bubbles for the ladies,
and we settled ourselves to an evening's talk. The old woman
refused to sit on the divan, saying that she was more accus-
tomed to the floor, and disposed herself neatly as close as pos-
sible to the brazier, holding out her wrinkled hands over the
glowing coals. She was clad in black, and her head was covered
by a thick white linen cloth, which was bound closely above
her brow and enveloped her chin, giving her the air of some
aged prioress of a religious order. Outside the turret room the
wind howled ; the rain beat against the single window, and the
talk turned naturally to deeds of horror and such whispered
tales of murder and death as must have startled the shadows

204 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

in that dim room for many and many a century. A terrible
domestic tragedy had fallen upon the Kaimakam ten days
before : his son had been shot by a schoolfellow at Tripoli
in some childish quarrel — the women seemed to thmk it not
unusual that a boy's sudden anger should have such con-
sequences. The Kaimakam had been summoned by telegraph ;
he had ridden down the long mountain road with fear clutch-
ing at his heart, only to find the boy dead, and his sorrow had
been almost more than he could bear. So said the Sitt Ferideh.

The ancient crone rocked herself over the brazier and
muttered :

" Murder is like the drinking of milk here ! God ! there is
no other but Thou."

A fresh gust of wind swept round the tower, and the
Christian woman took up the tale.

*' This Khanum," said she, nodding her head towards the
figure by the brazier, " knows also what it is to weep. Her
son was but now murdered in the mountains by a robber who
slew him with his knife. They found his body lying
stripped by the path."

The mother bent anew over the charcoal, and the glow
flushed her worn old face.

" Murder is like the spilling of water ! " she groaned.
" Oh Merciful ! "

It was late when the women left me. One of them offered
to pass the night in my room, but I refused politely and firmly.

Next day I was wakened by thunder and by hailstones
rattling against my shutters. There was nothing for it but to
spend another twenty-four hours under the Kaimakam's roof
and be thankful that we had a roof to spend them under. I
explored the castle from end to end, with immense satisfac-
tion to the eternal child that lives in the soul of all of us and
takes more delight in the dungeons and battlements of a for-
tress than in any other relic of antiquity. Kal'at el Husn is
so large that half the population of the village is lodged in the
vaulted substructures of the keep, while the garrison occupies
the upper towers. The walls of the keep rise from a moat
inside the first line of fortifications, the line through which we
had passed the night before by the vaulted gallery. The

THE DESEKT AND THE SOWN 205

butcher of the castle lodged by the gateway of the Inner
wall ; every morning he killed a sheep on the threshold, and
those who went out stepped across a pool of blood as though
some barbaric sacrifice were performed daily at the gate.
The keep contained a chapel, p now converted into a mosque.

THR BANQUET HALL

and a banquet hall with Gothic windows, the tracery of which
was blocked with stones to guard those who dwelt within
against the cold. The tower in which I was lodged formed part
of the highest of the defences and rose above three stories of
vaults. A narrow passage from it along the top of the wall led
into a great and splendid chamber, beyond which was a round
tower containing a circular room roofed by a fourfold vault,
and lighted by pointed windows with rosettes and mouldings
round the arches. The castle is the " Kerak of the Knights "
of Crusader chronicles. It belonged to the Hospitallers, and

2o6 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

the Grand Master of the Order made it his residence. The
Egyptian Sultan Malek ed Daher took it from them, restored
it, and set his exultant insc^ption over the main gate. It is
one of the most perfect of the many fortresses which bear
witness to the strange jumble of noble ardour, fanaticism,
ambition and crime that combined to make the history of the
Crusades — a page whereon the Christian nations cannot look
without a blush nor read without the unwilUng pity exacted
by vain courage. For to die in a worthless cause is the last
extremity of defeat, Kerak is closely related to the military
architecture of southern France, yet it bears traces of an
Oriental influence from which the great Orders were not im-
mune, though the Templars succumbed to it more completely
than the Hospitallers. Like the contemporary Arab fortresses
the walls increased in thickness towards the foot to form a
sloping bastion of solid masonry which protected them against
the attacks of sappers, but the roimded towers with their great
projection from the line of the wall were wholly French in
character. The Crusaders are said to have found a castle on
the hill top and taken it from the Moslims, but I saw no traces
of earlier work than theirs. Parts of the present structure are
later than their time, as, for instance, a big building by the
inner moat, on the walls of which were carved lions not unlike
the Seljuk lion.

After lunch I waded down the muddy hill to the village and
called on the Sitt Ferideh and her husband. There were
another pair of Christians present, the man being the Sahib es
Sanduk, which I take to be a kind of treasurer. The two men
talked of the condition of the Syrian poor. No one, said the
land surveyor, died of hunger, and he proceeded to draw up
the yearly budget of the average peasant. The poorest of the
fellahin may earn from looo to 1500 piastres a year (£j to £11),
but he has no need of any money except to pay the capitation
tax and to buy himself a substitute for military service. Meat
is an unknown luxury ; a cask of semen (rancid butter) costs
8s. or los. at most ; it helps to make the burghul and other
grains palatable, and it lasts several months. If the grain
and the semen run low the peasant has only to go out into the
moimtains or into the open country, which is no man's land, and

• THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 207

gather edible leaves or grub up roots. He builds his house
with his own hands, there are no fittings or furniture in it,
and the ground on which it stands costs nothing. As for
clothing, what does he need ? a couple of linen shirts, a woollen
cloak every two or three years, and a cotton kerchief for the
head. The old and the sick
are seldom left uncared for ;
their families look after them
if they have families, and if
they are without relations
they can alwaj^ make a live-
lihood by begging, for no one
in the East refuses to give
something when he is asked,
though the poor can seldom
give money. Few of the
fellahln own land of their
own ; they work for hire on
the estates of richer men.
The chief landowners round
Kal'at el Husn are the
family of the Danadisheh,
who come from Tripoli.
Until quite recently the
government did not occupy
the castle ; it belongs to the

family of the Za'bieh, who kal'at el hu^n, walls of the
have owned it for two inner enceinte

hundred years, and still live in some rooms on the outer
wall. The Treasurer broke in here and said that even the
Moslem population hated the Ottoman government, and would
infinitely rather be ruled by a foreigner, what though he were
an infidel — preferably by the English, because the prosperity
of Egypt had made so deep an impression on Syrian minds.

That evening the Kaimakam , sent me a message asking
whether I would choose to dine alone or whether I would
honour him and his wife, and I begged to be allowed to take the
latter alternative. In spite of a desire, touchingly evident, to
be a good host, he was sad and silent during the earlier stages

2o8 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

of the dinner, until we hit upon a subject that drew him from
the memory of his sorrow. The mighty dead came out to help
us with words upon their lips that have lifted the failing hearte
of generations of mankind. The Kaimakam was well acquainted
with Arabic literature ; he knew the poets of the Ignorance by
heart, and when he found that I had a scanty knowledge of
them and a great love for them he quoted couplet after couplet.
But his own tastes lay with more modem singers; the
tenth-century Mutanabbi was evidently one of his favourite
authors. Some of the old fire still smoulders in Mutanabbi's
verse ; it burnt again as the Kaimakam recited the famous
ode in which the poet puts from him the joys of youth :

*• Oft have I longed for age to still the tumult in my brain,
And why should I repine when my prayer is fulfilled ?
We have renounced desire save for the spear-points,
Neither do we dally, except with them.

The most exalted seat in the world is the saddle of a swift horse,
And the best companion lor all time is a book."

" Your Excellency," concluded the Kaimakam, " must
surely hold that couplet in esteem."

When we returned to the guest chamber he asked whether he
should not read his latest poem, composed at the request of the
students of the American College at Beyrout (the most renowned
institution of its kind in Sj^ria) to commemorate an anniversary
they were about to celebrate. He produced first the students'
letter, which was couched in flattering terms, and then his
sheets of manuscript, and declaimed his verses with the fine
emphasis of the Oriental reciter, pausing from time to time to
explain the full meaning of a metaphor or to give an illustra-
tion to some difficult couplet. His subject was the praise of
learning, but he ended inconsequently with a fulsome panegyric
on the Sultan, a passage of which he was immensely proud. As
far as I could judge it was not very great poetry, but what of
that ? There is no solace in misfortune like authorship, and for a
short hour the Kaimakam forgot his grief and entered mto regions
where there is neither death nor lamentation. I offered him
sympathy and praise at suitable points and could have laughed
to find myself talking the same agreeable rubbish in Arabic
that we all talk so often in English. I might have been sitting

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN ^ 209

in a London drawing-room, instead of between the bare walls of
a Crusader tower, and the world is after all made of the one
stuff throughout.

It was still raining on the following morning and I had
dressed and breakfasted in the lowest spirits when of a sudden

PKLr'.AHft: AFABS

some one waved a magic wand, the clouds were cleared away,
and we set off at half-past seven in exquisite sunshine. At
the bottom of the steep hill on whidi the castle stands there
lies in an olive grove a Greek monastery. When I reached it I
got off my horse and went in, as was meet, to salute the Abbot,
and, behold ! he was an old acquaintance whom I had met at
the monastery of Ma'alula five years earlier on my return from
Palmyra, There were great rejoicings at this fortunate coinci-
dence, and much jam and water and coffee were consumed in
the celebration of it. The monastery has been rebuilt, except

210 . THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

for a crypt-like chapel, which they say is 1200 years old. The
vault is supported by two pairs of marble columns, broken off
below the capital and returned into the wall, a scheme more
curious than attractive. The capitals are in the form of lily
heads of a Byzantine type. By the altar screen, a good piece
of modem wood carving, there are some very beautiful Persian
tiles. In the western wall of the monastery I was shown a
door so narrow between the jambs that it is scarcely possible
to squeeze through them, impossible, said the monks, for any
one except he be pure of heart. I did not risk my reputation
by attempting to force the passage.

We rode on through shallow wooded valleys full of flowers ;
the fruit trees were coming mto blossom and the honeysuckle
into leaf, and by a tiny graveyard under some budding oaks we
stopped to lunch. \ Before us lay the crucial point of our day's
march. We could see the keep of Safita Castle on the opposite
hill, but there was a swollen river between, the bridge had been
swept away, and report said that the ford was impassable.
When we reached the banks of the Abrash we saw the river
rushing down its wide channel, an unbroken body of swirling
water through which no loaded mule could pass. We rode
near two hours down stream, and were barely in time with the
second bridge, the Jisr el Wad, which was in the last stage of
decrepitude, the middle arch just holding together. The
hills on the opposite bank were covered with a low scrub, out
of which the lovely iris stylosa lifted its blue petals, and the
scene was further enlivened by a continuous procession of
white-robed Nosairis making their way down to the bridge.
I had a Kurdish zaptieh with me, 'Abd ul Mejid, who knew
the mountains well, and all the inhabitants of them. Though
he was a Mohammedan he had no feeling against the
Nosairis, whom he had always found to be a harmless folk,
and every one greeted him with a friendly salutation as we
passed. ^ He told me that the white-robed companies were
going to the funeral feast of a great sheikh much renowned
for piety, who had died a week ago. The feast on such oc-
casions is held two days after the funeral, and when the guests
have eaten of the meats each man according to his ability pays
tribute to the family of the dead, the sums varying from one

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 211

lira upwards to five or six. To have a reputation for holiness
in the Jebel Nosairiyyeh is as good as a life insurance with
us.

Owing to our long circuit we did not reach Safita till four.
I refused the hospitality of the Commandant, and pitched
my tents on a ridge outside the village. The keep which we
had seen from afar is all that remains of the White Castle of
the Knights Templars. It stands on the top of the hill with
the village clustered at its foot, and from its summit are
visible the Mediterranean and the northern parts of the
Phoenician coast. I saw a Phoenician coin among the anti-
quities offered me for sale, and the small bronze figure of a
Phoenician god — Safita was probably an inland stronghold of
the merchant nation. The keep was a skilful architectural
surprise. It contained, not the vaulted hall or refectory that
might have been expected, but a great church which had thus
occupied the very heart of the fortress. A service was being
held when we entered and all the people were at their prayers
in a red glow of sunset that came through the western doors.
The inhabitants of Safita are most of them Christians, and
many speak English with a strong American accent picked
up while they were making their small fortunes in the States.
Besides the accent, they had acquired a familiarity of address
that did not please me, and lost some of the good manners to
which they had been bom. 'Abd ul Mejid, the smart non-
commissioned officer, accompanied me through the town,
saved me from the clutches of the Americanised Christians,
twirled his fierce military moustaches at the little boys who
thought to run after us, and followed their retreat with ex-*
tracts from the finest vocabulary of objurgation that I have
been privileged to hear.

Late in the evening two visitors were announced, who turned
out to be the Zabit (Commandant) and another official sent
by the Kaimakam of Drekish to welcome me and bring me
down to his village. We three rode off together in the early
morning with a couple of soldiers behind us, by a winding
path through the hills, and after two hours we came to a valley
full of olive groves, with the village of Drekish on the slopes
above them. At the first clump of olive trees we found three

212 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

worthies in frock coats and tarbushes waiting to receive us ;
they mounted their horses when we approached and fell into
the procession, which was further swelled as we ascended the
village street by other notables on horseback, till it reached
the sum total of thirteen. The Kaimakam met us at the door
of his house, frock-coated and ceremonious, and led me into
his audience-room where we drank coffee. By this time the
company consisted of some thirty persons of importance.
When the official reception was over my host took me into his
private house and introduced me to his wife, a charming
Damascene lady, and we had a short conversation, during
which I made his better acquaintance. Riza Beg el 'Abid owes
his present position to the fact that he is cousin to 'Izzet Pasha,
for there is not one of that great man's family but he is at
least Kamaikam. Riza Beg might have climbed the
official ladder unaided ; he is a man of exceptionally pleasant
manners, amply endowed with the acute intelligence of the
Syrian. The family to which he and 'Izzet belong is of
Arab origin. The members of it claim to be descended from
the noble tribe of the Muwali, who were kin to Harun er Ras-
hid, and when you meet 'Izzet Pasha it is as well to con-
gratulate him on his relationship with that Khalif, though
he knows, and he knows also that you know, that the Mu-
wali repudiate his claims with scorn and count him among
the descendants of their slaves, as his name 'Abid (slave),
may show. Slaves or freemen, the members of the 'Abid
house have climbed so cleverly that they have set their feet
upon the neck of Turkey, and will remain in that precarious
position until 'Izzet falls from favour. Riza Beg pulled a
grave face when I alluded to his high connection, and observed
that power such as that enjoyed by his family was a serious
matter, and how gladly would he retire into a less prominent
position than that of Kaimakam ! Who knew but that the
Pasha too would not wish to exchange the pleasures of Con-
stantinople for a humbler and a safer sphere — a supposition
that I can readily believe to be well grounded, since 'Izzet, if
rumour speaks the truth, has got all that a man can reasonably
expect from the years during which he has enjoyed the royal
condescension. I assured the Kaimakam that I should make a

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 213

point of pa5ang my respects to the Pasha when I reached Con-
stantinople, a project that I ultimately carried out with such
success that I may now reckon myself, on 'Izzet's own
authority, as one of those who will enjoy his Ufe-long friend-
ship.

By this time lunch was ready, and the Khanum having
retired, the other guests were admitted to the number of four,
the Zabit, the Kadi and two others. It was a copious, an
excellent and an entertaining meal. The conversation flowed
merrily round the table, prompted and encouraged by the
Kaimakam, who handled one subject after the other with the
polished ease of a man of the world. As he talked I had
reason to observe once more how fine and subtle a tongue is
modem Syrian Arabic when used by a man of .education.
The Kadi's speech was hampered by his having a reputation
for learning to uphold, which obliged him to confine himself
to the dead language of the Kiur'an. As I took my leave the
Kaimakam explained that for that night I was still to be his
guest. He had learnt, said he, that I wished to camp at the
ruined temple of Husn es Suleiman, and had despatched my
caravan thither imder the escort of a zaptieh, and sent up
servants and provisions, together with one of his cousins to
see to my entertainment. I was to take the Zabit with me,
and Ra'ib Effendi el Helu, another of the luncheon party,
and he hoped that I should be satisfied. I thanked him
profusely for his kindness, and declared that I should have
known his Arab birth by his generous hospitality.

. Our path mounted to the top of the Nosairij^eh hills and
followed along the crests, a rocky and beautiful track. The
hills were extremely steep, and bare of all but grass and
flowers except that here and there, on the highest summits,
there was a group of big oaks with a white-domed Nosairi
mazar shining through their baie boughs. The Nosairis
have neither mosque nor church, but on every mountain top
they build a shrine that marks a burial-ground. These high-
throned dead, though they have left the world of men, have
not ceased from their good offices, for they are the protectors
of the trees rooted among their bones, trees which, alone among
their kind, are allowed to grow untouched.

214 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

Husn es Suleiman lies at the head of a valley high up in the
mountains. A clear spring breaks from under its walls and
flows roimd a natural platform of green turf, on which we
pitched our tents. The hills rise in an amphitheatre behind
the temple, the valley drops below it, and the gods to whom it
was dedicated enjoy in solitude the ruined loveliness of their
shrine. The walls round the temenos are overgrown with ivy,
and violets bloom in the crevices. Four doorways lead into
the court, in the centre of which stand the ruins of the temple,
while a little to the south of the cella are the foimdations
of an altar, bearing in fine Greek letters a dedication that
recounts how a centurion called Decimus of the Flavian (?)
Legion, with his two sons and his daughter, raised an altar of
brass to the god of Baitocaice and placed it upon a platform
of masonry in the year 444. The date is of the Seleucid era
and corresponds to a.d. 132. It is regrettable that Decimus
did not see fit to mention the name of the god, which remains
undetermined in all the inscriptions. The northern gateway
is a triple door, lying opposite to a second rectangular enclosure,
which contains a small temple in antis at the south-east
comer, and the apse of a sanctuary in the northern wall.
This last sheltered perhaps the statue of the imknown god, for
there are steps leading up to it and the bases of columns on
either side. As at Ba'albek, the Christians sanctified the
spot by the building of a church, which lay across the second
enclosure at right angles to the northern sanctuary. The
masonry of the outer walls of both courts is very massive, the
stones being sometimes six or eight feet long. The decoration
is much more austere than that of Ba'albek, but certain details
so intimately recall the latter that I am tempted to conjecture
that the same architect may have been employed at both
places, and that it was he who cut on the under side of the
architraves of Baitocaice the eagles and cherubs that he had
used to adorn the architrave of the Temple of Jupiter. The
peasants say that there are deep vaults below both temple and
court. The site must be well worthy of careful excavation,
though no additional knowledge will enhance the beauty of the
great shrine in the hills.

The Kaimakam had not fallen short of his word. Holocausts

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 217

erf sheep and hens had been offered up for us, and after my
friends and I had feasted, the soldiers and the muleteers
made merry in their turn. The camp fires blazed brightly
ill the clear sharp mountain air, the sky was alive with stars,
the brook gurgled over the stones ; and the rest was silence,
for Kurt was lost. Somewhere among the hills he had strayed
away, and he was
gone never to re-
turn. I mourned
bis loss, but slept
the more peacefully
for it ever after.

AH my friends and
all the soldiers rode
with us next day to
the frontier of the
district of Drekish
and there left
as after having
hounded a reluctant
Nosairi out of his

house at 'Ain esh north gate, hurn es suleiman

Shems and bidden him help the zaptieh who accompanied
us to find the extraordinarily rocky path to Masyad. After
they had gone I summoned Mikhail and asked him what
he had thought of our day's entertainment. He gave the
Arabic equivalent for a sniff and said :

" Doubtless your Excellency thinks that you were the guest
of the Kaimakam. I will tell you of whom you were the
guest. You saw those fellahin of the Nosairiyyeh, the
miserable ones, who sold you anticas at the ruins this morn-
ing ? They were your hosts. Everything you had was
taken from them without return. They gathered the wood
for the fires, the hens were theirs, the eggs were theirs, the
lambs were from their flocks, and when you refused to take
more saying, ' I have enough,' the soldiers seized yet another
lamb and carried it off with them. And the only payment
the fellahin received were the metaliks you gave them for
their old money. But if you will listen to me," added

2i8 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

Mikhail inconsequently, " you aiiall travel through the land
of Anatolia and never take a quarter of a mejideh from your
purse. From Kaimakam to Kaimal<am you shall go, and
everywhere they shall offer you hospitality — that sort does
not look for payment, they wish your Excellency to say a
good word for them when you come to Constantinople. You
shall sleep in their houses, and eat at their tables, as it
was when I travelled with
Sacks. . . ."

But if I were to tell all
that happened when Mikhail
travelled with Mark Sykes I
should never get to Masyftd.
The day was rendered
memorable by the excep-
tional difficulty of the paths
and by the beauty of the
flowers. On the hill tops
grew the alpine cyclamen,
crocuses, yellow, white and
purple, and whole slopes of
THE CITY CATE. MA^Y*D whitc primroscs ; lower down,

irises, narcissus, bl_ack and green orchids, purple orchis and
the blue many-petalled anemone in a boscage of myrtle. When
we reached the foot of the steepest slopes I sent the unfor-
tunate Nosairi home with a tip, which was a great deal more
than he expected to get out of an adventure that had begun
with a command from the soldiery. At three we reached
Masyad and camped at the foot of the castle.

Now Masyad was a disappointment. There is indeed a
great castle, but, as far as I could judge, it is of Arab workman-
ship, and the walls round the town are Arab also, A Roman
road from Hamah passes through Masyad, and there must be
traces of Roman settlement in the town, but I saw none. I
heard of a castle at Abu Kbesh on the top of the hills, but it
was said to be like Masyad, only smaller, and I did not go up
to it. The castle of Masyad has an outer wall and an inner
keep reached by a vaulted passage like that of Kal'at el Husn.
The old keep is almost destroyed, and has been replaced by

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 219

jerry-built halls and chambers erected by the Ismailis some
hundreds of years ago when they held the place, so I was
told by an old man called the Emir Mustafa Milhem, who
belonged to the sect and served me as guide. He also said
that his family had inhabited the castle for seven or eight
hundred years, but possibly he lied, though it is true that
the Ismailis have held
it as long. Built into
the outer gateways are
certain capitals and
columns that must
have been taken from
Byzantine structures.
There are some old
Arabic inscriptions in-
side the second gate
which record the names
of the builders of that
part of the fortifica-
tions, but they are
much broken. I was
told afterwards that I
ought to have visited
a place called Deir es
Sleb, where there are

two churches and a cAirirtL at masvAd

small castle. It is not

marked in the map, and I heard nothing of it until I had
left it far behind. I saw bits of the rasif, the Roman road,
as I travelled next day to Hamah. At the bridge over the
river Sarut, four and a half hours from Masyad, there is a
curious mound faced to the very top with a rough wall of
huge stones. Mikhail found a Roman coin in the furrows of
the field at the .foot of it. From the river we had two and
a half hours of tedious travel that were much lightened by
the presence of a charming old Turk, a telegraph official,
who joined us at the bridge and told me his story as we
rode.

" Effendim, the home of my family is near Sofia. Effendim,

220 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

you know the place ? Masha'llah, it is a pleasant land !
Where I lived it was covered with trees, fruit trees ?jid pines
in the mountains and rose gardens in the plain. Effendim,
many of us came here after the war with the Muscovite for
the' reason that we would not dwell under any hand but that
of the Sultan, and many returned again after they had come.
Efiendim ? Tor what cause ? They would not live in a
country without trees ; by God, they could not endure it."
Thus conversing we reached ^amSh.

CHAPTER X

You do not see >Jam5h until you are actually upon it —
there is no other preposition that describes the attitude of
the new comer. The Orontes at this point flows in a deep
bed and the whole city lies hidden between the banks. The
monotonous plain of cornfields stretches before you without a
break until you reach a veritable entanglement of graveyards
— the weekly All Souls' Day had come round again when we
arrived, and the cemeteries were crowded with the living as
well as with the dead. Suddenly the plain ceased beneath
our feet, and we stood on the edge of an escarpment, with
the whole town spread out before us, the Orontes set with
gigantic Persian wheels, and beyond it the conical mound
on which stood the fortresses of Hamath and Epiphaneia and
who knows what besides, for the site is one of the oldest in
the world. Two soldiers started from the earth and set about
to direct me to a camping ground, but I was tired and cross,
a state of mind that does sometimes occur on a journey, and
the arid spots between houses to which they took us seemed

222 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

particularly distasteful. At length the excellent Turk, who
had not yet abandoned us, declared that he knew the very
place that would please me ; he led us along the edge of the
escarpment to the extreme northern end of the city, and here
showed us a grassy sward which was as lovely a situation as
could be desired. The Orontes issued from the town below
us amid gardens of flowering apricot trees, the golden evening
light lay behind the minarets, and a great Na'oura ground
out a delicious song of the river.

Hamah is the present terminus of the French railway,* and
the seat of a Muteserrif . The railway furnished me with a
guide and companion in the shape of a Syrian station-master, a
consequential half-baked little man, who had been educated
in a missionary school and scorned to speak Arabic when he
could stutter in French. He annoimced that his name was
Monsieur Kbes and his passion archaeology, and, that he
might the better prove himself to be in the van of modem
thought, he attributed every antiquity in Hamah to the Hit-
tites, whether it were Byzantine capital or Arab enlaced decora-
tion. With the Muteserrif I came immediately into collision
by reason of his insisting on providing me with eight soldiers
to guard my camp at night, a preposterous force, considering
that two had been ample in every country district. So
numerous a guard would have been an intolerable nuisance,
for they would have talked all night and left the camp no
peace, and I sent six of them away, in spite of their protesta-
tions that they must obey superior orders. They reconciled
the Muteserrif's commands with mine by spending the night
in a ruined mosque a quarter of a mile away, where they were
able to enjoy excellent repose unbroken by a sense of respon-
sibility.

For picturesqueness Hamah is not to be outdone by any
town in Syria. The broad river with its water wheels is a
constant element of beauty, the black and white striped towers
of the mosques an exquisite architectural feature, the narrow,
partly vaulted streets are traps to hold unrivalled effects of
sun and shadow, and the bazaars are not as yet disfigured by

* It will be the terminus only for a month or two longer for the
line has at length been continued to Aleppo.

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 223

the iron roofs that have done so much to destroy the character
of those at Damascus and at Horns, The big mosque in the
centre of the town was once a Byzantine church. The doors
and windows of the earUer building are easily traceable in the
walls of the mosque ; the lower part of the western minaret
was probably the
foundation of an older
tower; the court is
full of Byzantine shafts
and capitals, and the
beautiful little Kubbeh
is supported by eight
Corinthian columns.
On one of these I
noticed the Byzantine
motive of the blown
acanthus. When they
grew weary of setting
the leaves in a stereo-
typed uprightness, the
stone-cutters laid them
lightly round the capi-
tal, as though the
fronds had drifted in
a swirl of wind, and
the effect is wonder-

, „ I , J , THE KUBBEH [M THE MOSQUE AT HAMAH

fully graceiul and lan-

ciful. Kbesand I climbed the citadel hill, and found the area
on the top to be enormous, but all the cut stones of the
fortifications have been removed and built into the town
below. My impression is that the isolation of the mound is
not natural, but has been effected by cutting through the
headland that juts out into the valley, and so separating a
part of it from the main ridge. If this be so, it must have
been a great work of antiquity, for the cutting is both wide
and deep.

The chief mtercst of the day at Hamah was supplied by
the inhabitants. Four powerful Mohammadan families are
reckoned as the aristocracy of the town, that of 'Azam Zadeb,

224 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

Teifur, Killani and Barazi, of which last I had seen a member
in Damascus. The combined income of each family is pro-
bably about £6000 a year, all derived from land and villages,
there being little trade in Hamah. Before the Ottoman
government was established as firmly as it is now, these four
families were the lords of Hamah and the surrounding dis-
tricts ; they are still of considerable weight in the adminis-
tration of the town, and the officials of the Sultan let them go
pretty much their own way, which is often devious. An
ancient evil tale of the 'Azam Zadeh is often told, and not denied,
so far as I could learn, by the family. There was an 'Azam
in past years who, like King Ahab, desired his neighbour's
vineyard, but the owner of it refused to sell. Thereupon
the great man laid a plot. He caused one of his slaves to be
slaughtered and had him cut into small pieces and buried,
not too deep, in a corner of the coveted property, and after
waiting a suitable time he sent a message to the landlord
saying, " You have frequently invited me to drink coffee with
you in your garden ; I will come. Make ready." The man
was gratified by this condescension and prepared a feast
The day came and with it the 'Azam prince. The meal was
spread under an arbour, but when the guest saw it he de-
clared that the spot selected did not suit him, and led the way
to the exact place where his slave had been buried. The
host protested, sajdng that it was a mean comer close to the
refuse heaps, but the 'Azam replied that he was satisfied,
and the entertainment began. Presently the guest raised
his head and said, " I perceive a curious smell." " My
lord," said the host, " it is from the refuse heaps." " No,"
said the other, " there is something more ; " and siunmoning
his servants he bade them dig in the ground whereon they sat.
The quartered body of the slave was revealed and recognised,
and on an accusation of murder the lord of the garden was
seized and bound, and his possessions taken from him by way
of compensation.

Nor, said Kbes, have such summary methods of injustice
ceased. Quite recently a quantity of onions were stolen from
a shop belonging to 'Abd ul Kadir el 'Azam in the quarter
immediately below my camp. The servants of 'Abd ul

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 227

Kadir came to the house of the sheikh of the quarter and
demanded from him their master's property, and since he
knew nothing of the matter and could not indicate who the
thief might have been, they seized him and his son, wounding
the son in the hand with a bullet, dragged them to the river
bank, stripped them, beat them almost to death, and left
them to get home as best they might. The incident was known
all over Hamah, but the government took no steps to punish
'Abd ul Kadir. I went to the house of Khalid Beg 'Azam,
which is the most beautiful in the city, as beautiful as the
famous 'Azam house in Damascus. Khalid took me into
rooms every inch of which was covered with an endless
variety of Persian patterns in gesso duro and woodwork and
mosaic. They opened upon a courtyard set round with an
arcade of the best Arab workmanship, with a fountain in the
centre and pots of flowering ranunculus and narcissus in
the comers. The women of the house of 'Azam have even a
greater reputation than the sumptuous walls that hold them ;
they are said to be the loveliest women in all Hamah.

The Killani I visited also in their charming house by the
Orontes, the Tekyah Killaniyyeh. It contains a mausoleum,
where three of their ancestors are buried, and rooms looking
over the river, filled with the pleasant grumbling of a Persian
wheel. From thence I went to the Muteserrif, who is an
old man bent almost double, and acquainted with no tongue
but Turkish. I was considerably relieved to find that he
bore no malice for my unruly conduct in the matter of the
guard. As we walked home to lunch we met an aged Afghan
clad in white. Dervish Effendi was his name. He stopped
the station-master to inquire who I was, and having learnt
that I was English he approached me with a grin and a salute
and said in Persian, " The English and the Afghans are
close friends." He was in fact as well informed as the British
public — possibly better informed — of the interchange of visits
and civilities between Kabul and Calcutta ; and the moral
of the episode (which developed into a long and tiresome,
but most cordial, visit from Dervish Effendi) is that the report
of what happens in the remotest comer of Asia is known almost
immediately to the furthest end, and that it is scarcely an

228 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

exaggeration to say that if an English regiment is cut up on
the bordei*s of Afghanistan the English tourist will be mocked at
in the streets of Damascus. Islam is the bond that unites the
western and central parts of the continent, as it is the electric
current by wliich the transmission of sentiment is effected,
and its potency is increased by the fact that there is little or
no sense of territorial nationality to counterbalance it. A
Turk of a Persian does not think or speak of " my country "
in the way that an Englishman or a Frenchman thinks and
speaks ; his patriotism is confined to the town of which he
is a native, or at most to the district in which that town lies.
If you ask him to what nationality he belongs he will reply :
" I am a man of Isfahan," or " I am a man of Konia," as the
case may be, just as the Syrian will reply that he is a native of
Damascus or Aleppo — I have already indicated that Syria is
merelya geographical term corresponding tono national senti-
ment in the breasts of the inhabitants. Thus to one hstening
to the talk of the bazaars, to the shopkeepers whose trade
is intimately connected with local conditions in districts
very far removed from their own counters, to the muleteers
who carry so much more than their loads from city to city,
all Asia seems to be linked together by fine chains of relation-
ship, and every detail of the foreign pohcies of Europe, from
China to where you please, to be weighed more or less accu-
rately in the balance of public opinion. It is not the part
of wanderers and hearers of gossip to draw conclusions. We
can do no more than report, for any that may care to listen,
what falls from the lips of those who sit round our camp fires,
and who ride with us across deserts and mountains, for their
words are like straws on the flood of Asiatic politics, showing
which way the stream is running. Personal experience has
acquainted them with the stock in trade and the vocabulary
of statecraft. They are familiar with war and negotiation
and compromise, and with long nurtured and carefully con-
cealed revenge. Whether they are discussing the results of a
blood feud or the consequences of an international jealousy
their appreciations are often just and their guesses near the
mark.

For the moment, so far as my experience goes, the name of

■ THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 229

the English carries more weight than it has done for some time
past. I noticed a very distinct difference between the general
attitude towards us from that which I had observed with pain
five years before, during the worst moments of the Boer War.
The change of feeUng is due, so far as I can judge from
the conversations to which I listened, not so much to our
victory in South Africa as to Lord Cromer's brilliant ad-
ministration in Egypt, Lord Curzon's policy on the Persian
Gulf, and the alli-
ance ".vith the con-
quering Japanese,

When I had at
last got rid of the
Afghan and was
sitting alone on the
fringe of grass that
separated my tent
from I he city hun-
dreds of feet below,
a person of import-
ance drove up to

pay his respects. capital in thb uosqub, hamah

He was the Mufti,

Muhammad Effendi, He brought with him an intelligent
man from Bosra el Harir, in the Hauran, who had travelled
in Cyprus and had much to say (and little good to say) of
our administration there. The Mufti was a man of the same
type as the Kadi of Homs and the Sheikh Nakshibendi —
the sharp-eyed and sharp-witted Asiatic, whose distinguished
features are somewhat marred by an astuteness that amounts
to cunning. He established himself upon the best of the
camp chairs, and remarked with satisfaction :

" I asked : ' Can she speak Arabic ? ' and when they
answered ' Yes,' verily I ordered my carriage and came."

His talk was of Yemen, whither he had been sent some years
before to restore peace after the last Arab revolt. He spoke
of the three days' journey over torrid desert from the coast,
of the inland mountains covered with trees where there is
always rain summer and winter, of the enormous grapes that

230 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

hang in the vineyards, and the endless variety of fruits in
the orchards, of the cities as big as Damascus, walled
with great fortifications of mud a thousand years old. The
Arabs, said he, were town dwellers not nomads, and they
hated the Ottoman government as it is hated in few places.
When the armies of the Sultan went out against them they
were accustomed to flee into the mountains, where they could
hold out, thought the Mufti, for an indefinite number of
years. But he was wrong; a few months were enough
to give victory to the Sultan's troops, what with daring
generalship and the power to endure desert marches, and the
rebellion failed, like many another, because the Arab tribes
hate each other more vindictively than they hate the
Osmanli. But, after the fashion of repressed rebellions in
Turkey, it has already broken out again. The Mufti told me
also that in Hamah wherever they dug they found ancient
foundations, even below the river level.

He was followed by my friend the Turkish telegraph clerk,
who rejoiced to see me so well encamped, and then by the
Muteserrif, pursuing an anxious and tottering course from his
carriage through my tent ropes. The latter lent me his victoria
that I might visit the parts of the town that lie on the eastern
banks of the Orontes, and Kbes and I drove off with two
outriders quite exceptionally free from rags. The eastern
quarter, the Hadir it is called, is essentially the Bedouin
quarter ; the city Arabic is replaced here by the rugged
desert speech, and the bazaars are filled with Arabs who come
in to buy coffee and tobacco and striped cloaks. It contains
a beautiful little ruined mosque, said to be Seljuk, called
El Hayyat, the mosque of Snakes, after the twisted columns
of its windows. At the northern end of the courtyard is a
chamber which holds the marble sarcophagus of Abu'l Fida,
Prince of Hamah, the famous geographer. He died in 1331 ;
his tomb is carved with a fine inscription recording the date
according to the era of the Hejra.

I gave a dinner party that night to the station-master, the
Syrian doctor, Sallum, and the Greek priest. We talked till
late, a congenial if incongruous company. Sallum had re-
ceived his training in the American College at Beyrout, from

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 231

whence come all the medical practitioners, great and small,
who are scattered up and down Syria. He was a Christian,
though of a different brand from the priest, and Kbes repre-
sented yet another variety of doctrine. On the whole, said
the priest, there was little anti-Christian feeling in Hamah,
but there was also little respect for his cloth ; that very day
as he walked through the town some Moslem women had
thrown pebbles at him from a house-top, shouting, " Dog
of a Christian
priest ! " Kbes
discussed the bene-
fits conferred by
the railway (a re-
markably ill-
managed concern I
fancy) and said
that without doubt
Ilamah had pro-
fited by it. Prices
had gone up in the
last two years, meat

that would other- a capital, hamSu

wise have found no

market was now sent down to Damascus and Beyrout, and
he himself who, when he first came, had been able to buy a
sheep for a franc, was now obliged to pay ten.

The Muteserrif of Hamah provided me with the best zaptieh
that I was to have on all my travels, Hajj Mahmiid, a native
of Hamah. He was a tall broad-shouldered man, who had
been in the Sultan's own guard at Constantinople, and had
made the pilgrimage three times, once as a pilgrim and twice
as a soldier of the escort. He rode with me for ten days, and
during that time told me more tales than would fill a volume,
couched in a fine picturesque speech of which he was the master.
He had travelled with a German archaeologist, and knew the
strange tastes of the Europeans in the matter of ruins and
inscriptions.

" At Kal'at el Mudik I said to him : ' If you would look
upon a stone with a horse written upon it and his rider, by the

^32 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

Light of God ! I can show it to you ! ' And he wondered
much thereat, and rewarded me with money. By God and
Muhammad the Prophet of God ! you too, oh lady, shall
gaze on it."

Now this exploit of Mahmud's was more remarkable than
would appear at first sight, for one of the great difficulties
in searching for antiquities is that the people in out-of-the-
way places do not recognise a sculptiue when they see it.
You are not surprised that they should fail to tell the difference
between an inscription and the natural cracks and weather
markings of the stone ; but it takes you aback when you ask
whether there are stones with portraits of men and animals
upon them, and your interlocutor replies : " Wallah ! we
do not know what the picture of a man is Uke." Moreover, if
you show him a bit of a relief with figures well carved upon it,
as often as not he will have no idea what the carving represents.

Mahmud's most memorable travelling companion had been a
Japanese who had been sent by his government, I afterwards
learnt, to study and report on the methods of building em-
ployed in the eastern parts of the Roman empire — to such
researches the Japanese had leisure to apply themselves in the
thick of the war. Mahmud's curiosity had evidently been
much excited by the httle man, whose fellows were snatching
victory from the dreaded Russians.

" All day he rode, and all night he wrote in his books. He
eat nothing but a piece of bread and he drank tea, and when
there came a matter for refusal he said (for he could talk
neither Arabic nor Turkish), * Noh ! noh ! ' And that is
French," concluded Mahmud.

I remarked that it was not French but English, which gave
Mahmud food for thought, for he added presently :

" We had never heard their name before the war, but by the
Face of the Truth ! the English knew of them."

The Orontes makes a half circle between IJamah and
Kal'at es Seijar, and we cut across the chord of the arc, riding
over the same dull cultivated plain that I had crossed on my
way from Masyad. It was strewn with villages of mud-
built , beehive-shaped huts ; they are to be met with on the
plains all the w^y to Aleppo, and are like no other villages

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 233

save those that appear in the illustrations to Central African
travel books. As a man grows rich he adds another beehive
and yet another to his mansion, till he may have a dozen or
more standing round a courtyard, some inhabited by himself
and his family, some by his cattle, one forming his kitchen, and
one his granary. We saw in the distance a village called Al
Herdeh, which Mahmud said was Christian and used to belong
entirely to the Greek communion. The inhabitants lived
happily together and prospered, imtil they had the misfor-
time to be discovered by a missionary, who distributed tracts
and converted some sixty persons to the English Church, since
when there has not been a moment's rest from brawhng in
Al Herdeh. As we rode, Mahmud told tales of the Ismailis
and the Nosairis. Of the former he said that the Agha
Khan's photograph was to be found in every house, but it is
woman that they worship, said he. Every female child bom
on the 27th of Rajab is set apart and held to be an incarnation
of the divinity. She is called the Rozah. She does not work,
her hair and nails are never cut, her family share in the respect
that is accorded to her, and every man in the village will wear
a piece of her clothing or a hair from her body folded in his
turban. She is not permitted to marry.

But what,'* said I, " if she desire to marry ? "
It would be impossible," replied Mahmud. " No one
wo\ild marry her, for is there any man that can marry God ? "

The sect is known to have sacred books, but none have yet
fallen into the hands of European scholars. Mahmud had
seen and read one of them — ^it was all in praise of the Rozah,
describing every part of her with eulogy. The IsmaiHs read
the Kur'an also, said he. Other strange matters he related
which, like Herodotus, I do not see fit to repeat. The creed
seems to spring from dim traditions of Astarte worship, or
from that oldest and most universal cult of all, the veneration
of the Mother Goddess ; but the accusations of indecency that
have been brought against it are, I gather, unfounded.*

Of the Nosairis Mahmud had much to tell, for he was we

• The plural of Ismaili in the vernacular is Samawileh. I do not
know whether this is the literary form, but it is the one I have always
heard.

234 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

acquainted with the hills in which they live, having been for
many years employed in collecting the capitation tax among
the sect. They are infidels, said he, who do not read the
Kur'an nor know the name of God. He related a curious
tale which I will repeat for what it is worth :

" Oh lady, it happened in the winter that I was collecting
the tax. Now in the month of Kanun el Awwal (December)
the Nosairis hold a great feast that occurs at the same time
as the Christian feast (Christmas), and the day before, when I
was riding with two others in the hills, there fell a quantity of
snow so that we could go no further, and we sought shelter at
the first village in the house of the Sheikh of the village.
For there is always a Sheikh of the village, oh lady, and a
Sheikh of the Faith, and the people are divided into initiated
and uninitiated. But the women know nothing of the secrets
of the religion, for by God ! a woman cannot keep a secret.
The Sheikh greeted us with hospitality and lodged us, but
next morning when I woke there was no man to be seen in the
house, nothing but the women. And I cried : ' By God
and Muhammad the Prophet of God ! what hospitality is
this ? and are there no men to make the coffee but only
women ? ' And the women replied : ' We do not know what the
men are doing, for they have gone to the house of the Sheikh
of the Faith, and we are not allowed to enter.' Then I arose
and went softly to the house and looked through the window,
and, by God ! the initiated were sitting in the room, and in the
centre was the Sheikh of the Faith, and before him a bowl filled
with wine and an empty jug. And the Sheikh put questions
to the jug in a low tone, and by the Light of the Truth I
heard the jug make answer in a voice that said : ' Bl. . bl. . .'
And without doubt, oh lady, this was magic. And while I
looked, one raised his head and saw me. And they came
out of the house and seized hold of me and would have beaten
me, but I cried : ' Oh Sheikh ! I am your guest ! ' So the
Sheikh of the Faith came forth and raised his hand, and on the
instant all those that had hold of me released me. And he fell
at my feet and kissed my hands and the hem of my coat and
said : ' Oh IJaj ji ! if you will not tell what you have seen I will
give you ten mejides ! ' And by the Prophet of God (upon

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 235

him be peace t) I have never related it, oh lady, until this
day."

After four hours' ride we came to Kal'at es Seijar. It
stands on a long hog's back broken in the middle by an arti-
ficial cutting and dropping by steep bluffs to the Orontes, which
runs here in a narrow bed between walls of rock. The castle
walls that crown the hill between the cutting and the river

KAL AT ES SEIJAR

make a very splendid appearance from below. There is a
small village of beehive huts at the bottom of the hill. The
Seleucid town of Larissa must have lain on the grassy slopes
to the r-or^h, judging from the number of dressed stones that
are scattered there, I pitched my camp at the further end
of the bridge in a grove of apricot trees, snowy with few r
and a-hum with bees. The grass was set thickly with ane-
mones and scarlet ranunculus. The castle is the property of
Sheikh Ahmed Seijari and has been held by his family- for three
hundred years. He and his sons hve in a number of little
modem houses, built out of old stones in the middle of the
fortifications. He owns a considerable amount of land and
about one-third of the village, the rest being unequally divided
between the Kill5nis of Hamah and the Smatiyyeh Arabs,
a semi-nomadic tribe that dwells in houses during the winter.
I had a letter of introduction to Sheikh Ahmed from Mustafa

236 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

Barazi, and, though Mahmud was of opinion that I should
not find him in the castle owing to a long-drawn trouble
between the Seijari family and the Smatiyyeh, we limbed
up to the gate and along a road that showed remains of aulting,
like the entrance to Kal'at el Husn, and so over masses of
ruin till we came to the modem village where the Seijari
sheikhs live. I inquired which was the house of Ahmed,
and was directed to a big wooden door, most forbiddingly
shut. I knocked and waited, and Mahmud knocked yet louder
and we waited again. At last a very beautiful woman opened
a shutter in the wall above and asked what we wanted. I said I
had a letter from Mustafa to Ahmed, and wished to see him.
She replied :

'* He is away."

I said : " I would salute his son."

" You cannot see him," she returned. " He is in prison at
Hamah, charged with murder. "

And so she closed the shutter, leaving me to wonder how
good manners would bid me act under these delicate con-
ditions. At that moment a girl came to the door and opened
it a hand's breadth. I gave her the letter and my card written
in Arabic, murmured a few words of regret, and went away.
Mahmud now tried to explain the matter. It was one of those
long stories that you hear in the East, without beginning,
without end, and without any indication as to which of the
protagonists is in the right, but an inherent probability that
all are in the wrong. The Smatiyyeh had stolen some of the
Seijari cattle, the sons of Ahmed had gone down into the
village and killed two of the Arabs — in the castle it was said
that the Arabs had attacked them and that they had killed
them in self-defence — the Government, always jealous of the
semi-independence of ruling sheikhs, had seized the oppor-
tunity to strike down the Seijari whether they were at fault
or no : soldiers had been sent from Hamah, one of Ahmed's
sons had been put to death, two more were in prison, and all
the cattle had been carried off. The rest of the Seijaris were
ordered not to stir from the castle, nor indeed could they do
so, for the Smatiyyeh were at their gates ready and anxious
to kill them if they stepped beyond the walls. They appealed

THE DESERT AND THK SOWN 237

to Hamah for protection, and a guard of some ten soldiers
was posted by the river, whether to preserve the lives of the
sheikhs or to keep them the more closely imprisoned it was
difficult to make out. These events dated from two years
back, and for that time the Seijaris had remained prisoners at
IJamah and in their own castle, and had been unable to superin-
tend the cultivation of their fields, which were running in conse-
quence to rack and ruin. Moreover, there seemed to be no
prospect of improve-
ment in the situa-
tion. Later in the
afternoon a mes-
senger arrived say-
ing that Ahmed's
brother, 'Abd ul
Kadir, would be
pleased to receive
me and would have
come himself to wel-
come me if he could
have left the castle,

I went up with- KAL'AI ES SEIJAB, the CUITING THROUGH

out Mahmud Snd

heard the whole story again from the point of view of the
sheikhs, which helped me to no conclusion, since it was in
most essentials a different story from that which I had heard
from Mahmiid. The only indisputable point (and it was prob-
ably not so irrelevant as it seems) was that the Seijari wornen
were wonderfully beautiful. They wore dark blue Bedouin dress,
but the blue cloths hanging from their heads were fastened
with heavy gold ornaments, like the plaques of the Mycenaean
treasure, one behind either temple. Agreeable though their com-
pany proved to be I was obliged to cut my visit short by reason
of the number of fleas that shared the captivity of the family.
Two of the younger women walked down with me through
the ruins of the castle, but when we reached the great outer
gate they stopped and looked at me standing on the threshold.
" Allah ! " said one, " you go forth to travel through the
whole world, and we have never been to Hamah ! "

238 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

I. saw them in tlie gateway when I turned again to wave
them a farewell. Tall and straight they were, and full of
supple grace, clothed in narrow blue robes, their brows bound
with gold, their eyes following the road they might not tread.
For whatever may happen to the sheikhs, nothing is more cer-
tain than that women as lovely as those two will remain im-
prisoned by their lords in Kal'at es Seijar.

We rode next day by cultivated plains to Kal'at el Mudik,
a short stage of under four hours. Although there were several
traces of ruined towns — one in particular I remember at a
hamlet called Sheikh Hadid, where there was a mound that
looked as if it might have been an acropolis — the journey
would have been uninteresting but for Mahmud's stories.
His talk ran through the characteristics of the many races
that make up the Turkish empire, with most of which he was
familiar, and when he came to the Circassians it appeared
that he shared my aversion to them.

" Oh lady," said he, " they do not know what it is to make
return for kindness. The father sells his children, and the
children would kill their own father if he had gold in his belt.
It happened once that I was riding from Tripoli to Homs, and
near the khan — you know the place — I met a Circassian walk-
ing alone. I said : ' Peace be upon you ! Why do you
walk ? ' for the Circassians never go afoot. He said : ' My
horse has been stolen from me, and I walk in fear upon this
road.' I said : ' Come with me and j^'ou shall go in safety to
Homs.' But I made him walk before my horse, for he was
armed with a sword, and who knows what a Circassian will do
if you cannot watch him ? And after a little we passed an old
man working in the fields, and the Circassian ran out lo him
and spoke with him, and drew his sword as though to kill him.
And I called out : ' What has this old man done to you ? '
And he replied : ' Bj^ God ! I am hungry, and I asked him
for food, and he said " I have none ! " wherefore I shall kill
him.' Then I said : ' Let him be. I will give you food.'
And I gave him the half of all I had, bread and sweetmeats and
oranges. So we journeyed until we came to a stream, and I
was thirsty, and I got off my mare and holding her by the bridle
I stooped to drink. And I looked up suddenly and saw the

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 239

Circassian with his foot in my stirrup on the other side of
the mare, for he designed to mount her and ride away. And,
by God ! I had been a father and a mother to him, therefore
I struck him with my sword so that he fell to the ground.
And I bound, him and drove him to Homs and dehvered him
to the Government. This is the -.manner of the Circassians,
may God curse them ! "

I asked him of the road to Mecca and of the hardships that
the pilgrims endure upon the way.

" By the Face of God ! they suffer," said he. " Ten
marches from Ma'an to Meda'in Saleh, ten from there to
Medina, and ten from Medina to Mecca, and the last ten are
the worst, for the Sherif of Mecca and the Arab tribes plot
together, and the Arabs rob the pilgrims and share the booty
with the Sherif. Nor are the marches like the marches of
gentlefolk when they travel, for sometimes there are fifteen
hours between water and water, and sometimes twenty, and
the last march into Mecca is thirty hours. Now the Govern-
ment pays the tribes to let the pilgrims through in peace,
and when they know that the Hajj is approaching they
assemble upon the hills beside the road and cry out to the
Amir ul Hajj : ' Give us our dues, 'Abd ur Rahman Pasha ! '
And to each man he gives according to his rights, to one money,
and to another a pipe and tobacco, to a third a kerchief, and
to a fourth a cloak. Yet it is not the pilgrims that suflei
most, but those who keep the forts that guard the water tank?
along the road, and every fort is like a prison. It happened
once that I was sent with the military escort, and my horse
fell sick and could not move, and they left me at one of the
forts between Meda'in Saleh and Medina till they should re-
turn. Six weeks or more I lived with the keeper of the fort,
and we saw no one, and we eat and slept in the sun, and eat
again, and slept, for we could not ride out for fear of the
Howeitat and the Beni 'Atiyyeh who were at war together.
And the man had lived there ten years and never gone a
quarter of an hour from that spot, for he watched over the
stores that feed the Hajj when it passes. By the Prophet of
God ! " said Mahmud, with a sweeping gesture of the hand tr^am
earth to sky, " for ten years he had seen nothing but the earth

240 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

and God ! Now he had a little son, and the boy was deaf
and dumb, but his eyes saw further than any man's, and he
watched all day from the top of the tower. And one day
he came running to his father and pointed with his hands,
and the father knew he had seen a raiding party far off, and
we hastened within and shut the doors. And the horsemen
drew near, five hundred of the Beni *Atiyyeh, and they
watered their mares and demanded food, and we threw down
bread to them, for we dared not open the doors. And while
they eat there came across the plain the raiders of the Howeitat,
and they began to fight together by the castle wall, and they
fought until the evening prayer, and those who lived rode
away, leavmg their dead to the number of thirty. And we
remained all night with locked doors, and at dawn we went
down and buried the dead. But it is better to live in a fortress
by the Haj j road," he continued, " than to serve as a soldier
in Yemen, for there the soldiers receive no pay and of food
not enough on which to live, and the ^pn bums like a fire. In
Yemen if a man stood in the shade and saw a purse of gold
lying in the sun, by God ! he would not go but to pick it
up, for the heat is like the fire of hell. Oh lady, is it true
that in Egypt the soldiers get their pay week by week and
month by month ? "

I replied that I believed it to be the case, such being the
custom in the English army.

" As for us," said Mahmud, " our pay is always due to us
for half a year, and often out of twelve months' pay we receive
but six months'. Wallah ! I have never touched more than
eight months' pay for a complete year. Once," he added,
" I was in Alexandria — Masha'llah, the fine city ! Houses
it has as big as the palaces of kings, and all the roads have
paved edges whereon the people walk. And there I saw a
cabman who sued a lady for his fare, and the judge gave it to
him. By the Truth ! the ways of judges are different with
us," observed Mahmud thoughtfully ; and then, with an abrupt
transition, he exclaimed : " Look, oh lady ! there is Abu
Sa'ad."

I looked, and saw Abu Sa'ad walking in the ploughed field,
with his white coat as spotless as though he had not just alighted

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 241

from a journey as long as one of Mahmud's, and his black
sleeves folded neatly against his sides, and I made haste to
welcome the Father of Good Luck, for in Syria the first stork
is like the first swallow with us. He cannot, however, any more
than the swallow make summer, and we rode that day into
Kal'at el Mudlk, in drenching rain.

Kal'at el Mudik is the Apamea of the Seleucids. It was
founded by Seleucus Nicator, that great town builder who
had so many

cities for his |

g o d-d a u g h-
ters: Seleucia
in Pieria, Se-
leucia on the
Calycadnus,
Seleucia in
Babylonia,
and more be-
sides. Though
it has been
utterly de-
stroyed by A CAPITAL. ,JA«iH

earthquakes,

enough remains in ruin to prove its ancient splendour,
the wide circuit of its walls, the number ot its temples and
the magnificence of its columned streets. You can trace
the main thoroughfares from gate to gate by the heaped
masses of the colonnades, and mark the stone bases of statues
at the intersections of the ways. Here and there a massive
portal opens into vacuity, the palace which it served having
been razed to the groimd, or an armed horseman decorates the
funeral stele on which the living merits of his prototype are
recorded. The Christians took up the story where the Seleucid
king-s had left it, and the ruins of a great church with a court-
yard set round with columns lie on the edge of the main street.
As I plunged in the soft spring rain through deep grass and
flowers and clumps of asphodel, to the discomfiture of the
grey owls that sat bh'nldng on the heaps of stones, the history
and architecture of the town seemed an epitome of the

♦

242 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

marvellous fusion between Greece and Asia that came of
Alexander's conquests. Here was a Greek king whose
capital lay on the Tigris, founding a city on the Orontes and
calling it after his Persian wife — ^what builders raised the
colonnades that adorned this and all the Greek-tinged towns
of Syria with classic forms used in a spirit of Oriental lavish-
ness ? what citizens walked between them, holding out hands
to Athens and to Babvlon ?

The only inhabited part of Kal'at el Mudik is the castle
itself, which stands on the site of the Seleucid acropolis, a
hill overlooking the Orontes valley and the Nosairiyyeh moun-
tains. It is mainly of Arab workmanship, though many hands
have taken part in its construction, and Greek and Arabic
inscriptions are built pellmell into the walls. To the south
of the castle there is a bit of classical building of which I
have seen no explanation. It looks as if it might be part
of the prosceniiun of the theatre, for the rising groimd behind
it is scooped away in the shape of an auditorium. A very
little digging would be enough to show whether traces of seats
lie under the grassy tank. In the valley there is a ruined
mosque and a fine khan, half ruined also. The Sheikh of the
castle gave me coffee, and told me yet another version of the
Seijari story, irreconcilable with either of the two first, whereat
I congratulated myself on having early determined not to
attempt to resolve that tangled problem. From the castle
top the valley of the Orontes seemed to be all under water :
it was the great swamp of the 'Asi, said the Sheikh, which dries
in summer when the island villages (as I saw them now) re-
sume their places as parts of the plain. Yes, certainly they
were very unhealthy, summer and winter they were fever-
stricken, and most of the inhabitants died young— lo, we belong
to God and imto Him do we return ! In winter and spring
these short-lived folk follow the calling of fishermen, but
when the swamp dried they turn into husbandmen after a
fashion of their own. They cut the reeds and sowed maize
upon them, and set them alight, and the maize rose out of the
ashes and grew — a phoenix-like method of agriculture.

At Apamea the excellent cakes I had bought in Damascus
came to an end — ^it seemed a serious matter at the time when

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 243

the bill of fare was apt to be monotonous. Lunch was the
least palatable of all our meals. Hard-boiled eggs and chunks
of cold meat cease to tempt the appetite after they have been
indulged in for a month or two. Gradually I taught Mikhail to
vary our diet with all the resources the coimtry offered, olives
and sheep's milk cheese, salted pistachios, sugared apricots
and half-a-dozen other delicacies, including the Damascus
cakes. The native servant, accustomed to feeding Cook's
tourists on sardines and tinned beef, thinks it beneath the
dignity of a European to eat such food, and you must go htmt
the bazaars with him yourself and teach him what to buy, or
you may pass through the richest coimtry and starve on cold
mutton.

CHAPTER XI

The next day's journey is branded on my mind by an inci-
dent which I can scarcely dignify with the name of an adven-
ture — a misadventure let me call it. It was as tedious while it
was happening as a real adventure (and no one but he who has
been through them knows how tiresome they frequently are),
and it has not left behind it that remembered spice of possible
danger that enlivens fireside recollections. We left Kal'at
el Mudik at eight in pouring rain, and headed northwards to the
Jebel Zawiyyeh, a cluster of low hills that lies between the
Orontes valley and the broad plain of Aleppo. This range con-
tains a number of ruined towns, dating mainly from the fifth
and sixth centuries, partially re-inhabited by Syrian fellahin, and
described in detail by de Vogiie and Butler. The rain stopped
as we rode up a low sweep of the hills where the red earth was
all under the plough and the villages set in olive groves. The
country had a wide bare beauty of its own, which was heightened
by the dead towns that were strewn thickly over it. At first
the ruins were little more than heaps of cut stones, but at Kefr
Anbil there were some good houses, a church, a tower and a
very large necropolis of rock-cut tombs. Here the landscape
changed, the cultivated land shrank into tiny patches, the
red earth disappeared and was replaced by barren stretches of
rock, from out of which rose the grey ruins like so many colossal
boulders. There must have been more cultivation when the
district supported the very large population represented by
the ruined towns, but the rains of many winters have broken
the artificial terracings and washed the earth down into the
valleys, so that by no possibility could the former inhabitants
draw from it now sufficient produce to sustain them. North-
east of Kefr Anbil, across a labj^rinth of rocks, appeared the
walls of a wonderful village, Khirbet Hass, which I was particu-

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 245

[arly anxious to see. I sent the mules straight to El B5rah,
our halting place that night, engaged a villager as a guide over
the stony waste, and set off with Mikhail and Mahmud. The
path wound in and out between the rocks, a narrow band of
grass plentifully scattered with stones ; the afternoon sun
shone hot upon us, and I dismounted, took off my coat, bound

it (as I thought) fast to my saddle, and walked on ahead amid
the grass and flowers. That was the beginning of the mis-
adventure. Khlrbet Hass was quite deserted save for a couple
of black tents. The streets of the market were empty, the
walls of the shops had fallen in, the church had long been aban-
doned of worshippers, the splendid houses were as silent as
the tombs, the palisaded gardens were untended, and no one
«ime down to draw water from the deep cisterns. The charm
and the mystery of it kept me loitering till the sun was neai
the horizon and a cold wind had risen to remind me of my coat,
but, lo ! when I returned to the horses it was gone from my
saddle. Tweed coats do not grow on every bush in north
Syria, and it was obvious that some effort must be made to

246 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

recover mine. Mahmud rode back almost to Kefr Anbfl, and
returned after an hour and a half empty handed. By this
time it was growing dark ; moreover a black storm was blowing
up from the east, and we had an hour to ride through very rough
country. We started at once, Mikhail, Mahmud and I, picking
our way along an almost invisible path. As ill luck would
have it, just as the dusk closed in the storm broke upon us,
the night turned pitch dark, and with the driving rain in our
faces we missed that Medea- thread of a road. At this moment
Mikhail's ears were assailed by the barking of imaginary dogs,
and we turned our horses' heads towards the point from which
he supposed it to come. This was the second stage of the mis-
adventure, and I at least ought to have remembered that Mik-
hail was always the worst guide, even when he knew the
direction of the place towards which he was going. We
stumbled on ; a watery moon came out to show us that our
way led nowhere, and being assured of this we stopped and
fired off a couple of pistol shots, thinking that if the village were
close at hand the muleteers would hear us and majce some
answering signal. None came, however, and we found our
way back to the point where the rain had blinded us, only to be
deluded again by that phantom barking and to set off again
on our wild dog chase. This time we went still further afield,
arid Heaven knows where we should ultimately have arrived
if I had not demonstrated by the misty moon that we were
riding steadily south, whereas El Barah lay to the north. At this
we turned heavily in our tracks, and when we had ridden some
way back we dismounted and sat down upon a ruined wall to
discuss the advisability of lodging for the night in an empty
tomb, and to eat a mouthful of bread and cheese out of Mah-
mfid's saddle-bags. The hungry horses came nosing up to
us; mine had half my share of bread, for after all he was
doing more than half the share of work. The food gave us
enterprise ; we rode on and found ourselves in the twinkling
of an eye at the original branching off place. From it we
struck a third path, and in five minutes came to the village
of El Barah, round which we had been circling for three hours.
The muleleers were fast asleep in the tents ; we woke them
somewhat rudely, and asked whether they had not heard our

MOULDING AT EL BARAH AND LINTEL AT KHIRBET HA33

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 249

signals. Oh yes, they replied cheerfully, but concluding that
it was a robber taking advantage of the stormy n^ht to kill
some one, they had paid small attention. This is the whole
tale of the misadventure ; it does credit to none of the persons
concerned, and I blush to relate it. It has, however, taught
me not to doubt the truth of similar occurrences in the lives
of other travellers whom I have now every reason to believe
entirely veracious.
Intolerable
though El BSrah
may be by night,
by day it is most
marvellous and
most beautiful. It
is hke the dream
city which chil-
dren create for
themselves to
dwell in between
bedtime and sleep-
time, building

palace after palace ,„^„

down the shming

ways of the imagination, and no words can give the charm
of it nor the magic of! the Syrian spring. The generations
of the dead walk with you down the streets, you see them
flitting across their balconies, gazing out of windows wreathed
with white clematis, wandering in palisaded gardens that are
stm planted with ohve and with vine and carpeted with iris,
hyacinth and anemone. Yet you may search the chronicles for
them in vain ; they played no part in history, but were content to
live in peace and to build themselves great houses in which to
dwdl and fine tombs to Ue in after they were dead. That they
became Christian the hundreds of ruined churches and the
cross carved over the doors and windows of their dwellings,
would be enough to show ; that they were artists their decora-
tions prove ; that they were wealthy their spacious mansions
their summer houses and stables and out-houses testify. They
borrowed from Greece such measure of cultivation and of the

250 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

axts as they required, and fused with them the spirit of Oriental
magnificence which never breathed without effect on the
imagination of the West ; they hved in comfort and security
such as few of their contemporaries can have known, and
the Mahommadan invasion swept them off the face of the
earth.

I spent two days at El Barah and visited five cr six of the
villages round about, the Sheikh of El Barah and his son serv-
ing me as guides. The Sheikh was a sprightly old man called
Yunis, who had guided all the distinguished archaeologists
of his day, remembered them, and spoke of them by name — or
rather by names of his own, very far removed from the originals.
I contrived to make out those of de Vogu6 and Waddington,
and another that was quite unintelligible was probably intended
for Sachau. At Serjilla, a town with a sober and solid air
of respectability that would be hard to match, though it is
roofless and quite deserted, he presented me with a palace
and its adjacent tomb that I might live and die in his neigh-
bourhood, and when I left he rode with me as far as Deir San-
bil to put me on my way. He was much exercised that day
by a disturbance that had arisen in a village near at hand.
A man had been waylaid by two others of a neighbouring
village who desired to rob him. Fortunately a fellow towns-
man had come to his assistance and together they had suc-
ceeded in beating off the attack, but in the contest the friend
had lost his Ufe. His relations had raided the robbers' village
and carried off all the cattle. Mahmud was of opinion that
they should not have taken the law into their own hands.

" By God ! " said he, " they should have laid the case before
the Government."

But Yunis replied, with unanswerable logic :

" Of what use was it to go to the Government ? They
wanted their rights."

In the course of conversation I asked Yunis whether he ever
went to Aleppo.

" By God ! " said he. " And then I sit in the bazaars and
watch the consuls walking, each with a man in front clothed in
a coat worth two hundred piastres, and the ladies with as it
were flowers upon their heads." (The fashionable European

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 251

hat, I imagine.) " I always go to Aleppo when my sons are in
prison there," he explained. "Sometimes the gaoler is soft-
hearted and a little money will get them out."

I edged away from what seemed to be delicate groimd by
asking how many sons he had.

" Eight, praise be to God ! Each of my wives bore me fonr
sons and two daughters."

" Praise be to God ! " said I.

" May God prolong your life ! " said Yunis, " My second
wife cost me a great deal of money," he added.

252 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

" Yes ? " said I.

" May God make it Yes upon you, oh lady ! I took her
from her husband, and by God (may His name be praised and
exalted !) I had to pay two thousand piastres to the husband
and three thousand to the judge."

This was too much for Hajj Mahmud's sense of the pro-
prieties.

" You took her from her husband ? " said he. " Wallah !
that was the deed of a Nosairi or an Ismaili. Does a Moslem
take away a man's wife ? It is forbidden."

" He was my enemy," explained Yunis, " By God and the
Prophet of God, there H=3 enmity between us even unto death."

" Had she children ? " inquired Mahmiid.

" Ey wallah ! " assented the Sheikh, a little put about by
Mahmud's disapproval. " But I paid two thousand piastres
to the husband and three thousand "

" By the Face of God ! " exclaimed Mahmud, still more
outraged, " it was the deed of an infidel."

And here I put an end to further discussion of the merits
of the case by asking whether the wom£in had liked being
carried off.

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 253

" Without doubt," said Yunis. " It was her wish."

We may conclude, therefore, that ethics did not hare much

to do with the matter, though he indemnified so amply both the

husband and the judge.
This episode led us to discuss the usual price paid for a wife.

" For such as we," said Yunis, with an indescribable air
of social pre-eminence, " the girl will not be less than four
thousand piastres, but a poor man who has no money will give
the father a cow or a few sheep, and he will be content,"

After he left us I rode round by Ruweiha that I might see
the famous church by which stands the domed tomb of Bizzos,
This church is the most beautiful in the Jebel Zawiyyeh, with
its splendid narthex anrl carved doorways, its stilted arches
and the wide-spanned arcades of its nave — how just was the
confidence in his own mastery over his material which encou-
raged the builder to throw those great arches from pier to pier is
proved by the fact that one of them stands to this day. The
little tomb of Bizzos is almost as perfect as it was when it
was first built. By the doorway an inscription is cut in Greek :

254 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

" Bizzos son of Pardos. I lived well, I die well and well I rest.
Pray for me." Ihe strangest features in all the architecture
of North Syria are the half-remembered classical motives that
find their way into mouldings that are almost Gothic iiT their
freedom, and the themes of a classical entablature that grace
church window or architrave. The scheme of Syrian decora-
tion was primarily a row of circles or wreaths filled with whorls
or with the Christian monogram ; but as the stonecutters grew
more skilful they ran their circles together into a hundred
exquisite and fanciful shapes of acanthus and palm and laurel,
making a flowing pattern round church or tomb as varied as the
imagination could contrive. The grass beneath their feet,
the leaves on the boughs above their heads, inspired them
with a wealth of decorative design much as they inspired
William Morris twelve hundred years later.

There is another church at Ruweiha scarcely less perfect
than the Bizzos church, but not so splendid in design. It is
remarkable for a monument standing close to the south wall,
which has been explained as a bell tower, or a tomb, or a
pulpit, or not explained at all. It is constructed of two stories,
the lower one consisting of six columns supporting a plat-
form, from the low wall of which rise four comer piers to carry
the dome or canopy. The resemblance to some of the North
Italian tombs, as, for instance, to the monument of Rolandino,
in Bologna, is so striking that the beholder instinctively assigns
a similar purpose to the graceful building at Ruweiha.

We camped that night at Dana, a village that boasts a pyra-
mid tomb with a porch of four Corinthian columns, as perfect
in execution and in balanced proportion as anything you could
wish to see. On our way from Ruweiha we passed a mansion
which I would take as a type of the domestic architecture of
the sixth century. It stood apart, separated by a mile or two of
rolling country from any village, with open balconies facing
towards the west and a delightful gabled porch to the north,
such a porch as might adorn any English country house of to-
day. You could fancy the sixth-century owner sitting on the
stone bench within and watching for his friends — ^he can have
feared no enemies, or he would not have built his dwelling far
out in the country and guarded it only with a garden palisade.

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 255

At Kasr el BanSt, the Maidens' Fortress as the Syrians call it,
I was impressed more than at any other place with the high
level that social order had reached in the Jebel Zawiyyeh, lor
here were security and weaJth openly displayed, and leisure
wherein to cultivate the arts ; and as I rode away I fell to won-
dering whether civilisation is indeed, as we think it in Europe, a
resistless power sweeping forward and carrying upon its crest

those who are apt to profit by its advance ; or whether it is not
rather a tide that ebbs and flows, and in its ceaseless turn ajid
return touches ever at the flood the self-same place upon the
shore.

Late at night one ot Sheikh Yunis's sons rode in to ask us
whether his father were still with us. On leaving us that
enterprising old party had not, it seemed, returned to the
bosom of his anxious family, and I have a suspicion that his
friendly eagerness to set us on our way was but part of a deep-
laid plot by means of which he hoped to be able to take a hand
in those local disturbances that had preoccupied him during
the morning. At any rate he had made off as soon as we were
out of sight, and the presumption was that he had hastened to
join in the fray. What happened to him I never heard, but I
am prepared to wager that whoever bit the dust at the village
of El Mugh3ra it was not Sheikh Yunis.

256 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

Three rather tedious days lay between us and Aleppo. We
might have made the journey in two, but I had determined to
strike a little to the east in order to avoid the carriage road,
which was well known, and to traverse country which, though it
might not be more interesting, was at least less familiar. Five
hours' ride from Dana across open rolling uplands brought us
to Tarutm. ' We passed several ancient sites, re-occupied by
half-settled Arabs of the Muwali tribes, though the old buildings
were completely ruined. All along the western edges of the
desert the Bedouin are beginning to cultivate the soil, and are
therefore forced to establish themselves in some fixed spot near
their crops. " We are become fellahin," said the Sheikh of
Tarutin. In some distant age, when all the world is ploughed
and harvested, there will be no nomads left in Arabia. In the
initial stages these new-made farmers continue to live in tents,
but the tents are stationary, the accompanying dirt cumu-
lative, and the settlement unpleasing to any of the senses. The
few families at Tarutm had not yet forgotten their desert manners,
and we found them agreeable people,notwithstandingtheaccuracy
with which the above remarks applied to their village of hair.

I had not been in camp an hour before there was a great
commotion among my men, and Mikhail came to my tent
shouting, " The Americans ! the Americans ! " It was not
a raid, but the Princeton archaeological expedition, which,
travelling from Damascus by other ways than ours, was
now making for the Jebel Zawiyyeh ; and a fortunate encoun-
ter my camp thought it, for each one of us found acquaint-
ances among the masters or among the muleteers, and had
time to talk, as people will talk who meet by chance upon an
empty road. Moreover, the day I spent at Tarutin provided
me with an admirable object lesson in archaeology. As the
members of the expedition planned the ruins and deciphered
the inscriptions, the whole fifth-century town rose from its ashes
and stood before us — churches, houses, forts, rock-hewn tombs
with the names and dates of death of the occupants carved
over the door. "^Next day we had a march of ten hours. We went
north, passing a small mud-village called Helban, and another
called Mughara Merzeh, where there were the remains of a
church and rock-cut tombs of a very simple kind. (None of

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

«59

these places are marktd on Kiepert's map.) Then we turned to
the east and reached Tulul, where we came upon an immense
expanse of flood water, stretching south at least twelve miles
from the Matkh, the swamp in which the River Kuwek rises.
At Tulul some Arab women were mourning over a new-made
- grave. For three da^s after the dead are buried they weep
thus at the grave

side; only at Mecca I

and at Medma, said
Mahmud, there is no
mourning for those
who are gone. There
when breath leaves
the body the women
give three cries, to
make known to the
world that the soul
has fled ; but beyond
these cries there is no
lamentation, for it is
forbidden that tears
should fall upon the
head of the corpse.

The Lord has given

and He has taken ™''°' "*"*

away. So we went south along the edge of the high
ground to a little hill called TeU Selma, where we turned
east again and rounded the flood water and rode along its
margin to a big village, Mo3^mat, half tents and half beehive
huts built of mud. There is no other material but mud in
which to buUd ; from the moment we left the rocky ground
on which TT^rutin stands we never saw a stone — never a stone
and never a tree, but an endless unbroken cornfield, with the
first scarlet tulips coming into bloom among the young wheat.
It was heavy going, though it was soft to the horses' feet. If
there were a little more earth upon the hills of Syria and a few
more stones upon the plain, travelling would be easier in that
country ; but He, than whom there is none other, has ordered
differently. From Moyemat we rode north-east until we came

z6o THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

to a village called Hober, at the foot of a spur of the Jebel el
Hass, and here we <ried to camp, but could get neither oats nor
barley, nor even a handful of chopped straw ; and so we went
on to Kefr 'Abid, which is marked on the map, and pitched
tents at six o'clock. The villages unknown to Kiepert are
probably of recent constn^ction, indeed many of them are still
half camp. They are exceedingly numerous ; about Hober I
coimted five within a radius of a mile or two. The Arabs who
inhabit them retain their nomad habits of feud. Each village
has its allies and its blood enemies, and political relations
are as delicate as they are in the desert. My diary contains
the following note at the end of the day : " Periwinkles, white
irises of the kind that were blue at El BSlrah, red and yellow
ranunculus, storks, larks." These were all that broke the
monotony of the long ride.

About half an hour to the north of Kefr 'Abid there is a
little beehive village which contains a very perfect mosaic of
geometrical patterns. The fragments of other mosaics are to
be found scattered through the village, some in the houses,,
and some in the courtyards, and the whole district needs care-
ful exploration while the new settlers are turning up the ground-
and before they destroy what they may find. We reached
Aleppo at midday, approaching it by an open drain. Whether
it were because of the evil smell or because of the heavy sky
and dust-laden wind I do not know, but the first impression
of Aleppo was disappointing. The name, in its charming
Europeanised form, should belong to a more attractive city,
and attractive Aleppo certainly is not, for it is set in a barren,
treeless, featureless world, the beginning of the great Meso-
potamian flats. The site of the town is Uke a cup and saucer,
the houses lie in the saucer and the castle stands on the up-
turned cup, its minaret visible several hours away while no
vestige of the city appears until the last mile of the road. I
stayed two days, during which time it rained almost ceaselessly,
therefore I do not know Aleppo — an Oriental city will not
admit you into the circle of its intimates unless you spend
months within its walls, and not even then if you will not take
pains to please — ^but I did not leave without having perceived
dimly that there was something to be known. It has been a

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 261

splendid Arab city ; as you walk down the narrow streets you
pass minarets and gateways of the finest period of Arab archi-
tecture; some of the mosques and baths and khans {especially
those half ruined and dosed) are in the same style, and the castle
is the best example of twelfth-century Arab workmanship
in all Syria, with iron doors of the same period — they are dated ,
— and beautiful bits of decoration. There must be some native
vitality stitl that corresponds to these signs of past greatness.

but the town has fallen on evil days. It has been caught
between the jealousies of European concession hunters, and it
suffers more than most Syrian towns from the strangling grasp
of the Ottoman Government. It is slowly dying for want of
an outlet to the sea, and neither the French nor the German
railway will supply its need. Hitherto the two companies
have been busUy engaged in thwarting one another. The
original concession to the Rayak-Hamah railway extended
to Aleppo and north to Birijik — I was told that the tickets to
Birijikwere printed off when the first rails were laid at Rayak.
Tlien came Germany, with her great scheme of a railway to
Baghdad. She secured a concession for a branch line from
Killiz to Aleppo, and did what she could to prevent the French
from advancing beyond IJamSh, on the plea that the Fier.di
railway would detract from the value of the German conces-
Mon — my information, it may be well imagined, is not from

262 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

the Imperial Chancery, but from native sources in Aleppo itself.
Since I left, the French have taken up their interrupted work
on the Rayak-Hamah line, though it is to be carried forward,
I believe, not to Birijik, but only as far as Aleppo.* It will be
of no benefit to the town. Aleppo merchants do not wish to
send their goods a three days' journey to Bey rout ; they want a
handy seaport of their own, which will enable them to pocket
all the profits of the trade, and that port should be Alexan-
dretta* Neither does the Baghdad railway, if it be continued,
offer any prospect of advantage. By a branch line already
existing (it was built by English and French capitalists, but has
recently passed under German control) the railway will touch
the sea at Mersina, but Mersina is as far from Aleppo as is
Beyrout. That a line should be laid direct from Aleppo to
Alexandretta is extremely improbable, since the Sultan fears
above all things to connect the inland caravan routes with the
coast, lest the troops of the foreigner, and particularly of
England, should find it perilously easy to land from their war-
ships and march up country. Aleppo should be still, as it was
in times past, the great distributing centre for the merchan-
dise of the interior, but traffic is throttled by the fatal frequency
with which the Government commandeers the baggage camels.
Last year, with the Yemen war on hand and the consequent
necessity of transporting men and military stores to the coast
that they might be shipped to the Red Sea, this grievance had
become acute. For over a month trade had been stagnant
and goods bound for the coast had lain piled in the bazaar
— a Httle more and they would cease to come at all, the camel
Dwners from the East not daring to enter the zone of danger ta
their beasts. Here, as in all other Turkish towns, I heard the
cry of ofiicial bankruptcy. The Government had no funds
wherewith to undertake the most necessary works, the trea-
suries were completely empty.

Though my stay was short I was not without acquaintances,
among whom the most important was the Vali. Kiazim
Pasha is a man of very different stamp from the Vali of Damas-
cus. To the extent that the latter is, according to his lights,
a real statesman, in so far is Kiazim nothing but a farceur.
^ The line is now completed as far as Aleppo.

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 265

He received me in his harem, for which I was grateful when I
saw his wife, who is one of the most beautiful women that it is
possible to behold. She is tall and stately, with a small dark
head, set on magnificent shoulders, a small straight nose, a
pointed chin and brows arching over eyes that are like dark
pools — I could not take mine from her face while she sat with
us. Both she and her husband are Circassians, a fact that had
put me on my guard before the Vali opened his lips. They
both spoke French, and he spoke it very well. He received
me in an offhand manner, and his first remark was :

" Je suis le jeune pasha qui a fait la paix entre les 6glises."

I knew enough of his history to realise that he had been
Muteserrif of Jerusalem at a time when the rivalries between
the Christian sects had ended in more murders than are cus-
tomary, and that some kind ot uneasy compromise had been
reached, whether through his ingenuity or the necessities of
the case I had not heard.

" How old do you think I am ? " said the pasha.

I replied tactfully that I should give him thirty-five years.

" Thirty-six ! " he said triumphantly. " But the consuls
listened to me. Mon Dieu ! that was a better post than this,
though I am Vali now. Here I have no occasion to hold con-
ferences with the consuls, and a man .like me needs the society
of educated Europeans."

(Mistrust the second : an Oriental official, who declares that
he prefers the company of Europeans.)

" I am very Anglophil," said he.

I expressed the gratitude of my country in suitable terms.
But what are you doing in Yemen ? " he added quickly.
Excellency," said I, "we English are a maritime people,
and there are but two places that concern us in all Arabia."

" I know," he interpolated. " Mecca and Medina."

" No," said I. " Aden and Kweit."

" And you hold them both," he returned angrily — yes, I arn
bound to confess that the tones of his voice were not those of
an Anglo-maniac.

Presently he began to tell me that he alone among pashas
had grasped modem necessities. He meant to buila a fine
metalled road to Alexandr^tta — ^not that it will be of much use,

266 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

thought I,, if there axe no camels to walk in it — ^like the road
he had built from Samaria to Jerusalem. That was a road
like none other in Turkey — did I know it ? I had but lately
travelled over it, and seized the opportunity of congratulating
the maker of it ; but I did not tffink it necessary to mention
that it breaks off at the bottom of the only serious ascent and
does not begin again till the summit of the Judaean plateau is
reached.

This is all that need be said of Kiazim Pasha's methods.

A far more S)mipathetic acquaintance was the Greek Catholic
Archbishop, a Damascene educated in Paris and for some time
cur6 of the Greek CathoUc congregation in that city, though
he is still comparatively young. I had been given a letter to
him, on the presentation of which he received me with great
affability in his own house. We sat in a room filled with
books, the windows opening on to the silent courtyard of his
palace, and talked of the paths into which thought had wan-
dered in Europe ; but I found to my pleasure that for all his
learning and his long sojourn in the West, the Archbishop had
remained an Oriental at heart.

" I rejoiced," said he, " when I was ordered to return from
Paris to my own land. Tliere is much knowledge, but little
faith in France ; while in Syria, though there is much ignorance,
reUgion rests upon a sure foundation of belief."

The conclusion that may be drawn from this statement is
not flattering to the Church, but I refrained from comment.

He appeared in the afternoon to return my call — from the
Vali downwards all must conform to this social obligation —
wearing his gold cross and carrying his archiepiscopal staff
in his hand. From his tall brimless hat a black veil fell dowa
his back, his black robes were edged with purple, and an ob-
sequious chaplain walked behind him. He found another
visitor sitting with me in the inn parlour, Nicola Homsi, a rich
banker of his own congregation. Homsi belongs to an im-
portant Christian family settled in Aleppo, and his banking
house has representatives in Marseilles and in London. He
and the Archbishop between them were fairly representative
of the most enterprising and the best educated classes in S3^a.
It is they who suffer at the hands of the Turk, — ^the ecclesiastic.

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 267

because ot a blind and meaningless official opposition that
meets the Christian at every turn ; the banker, because his
interests call aloud for progress, and progress is what the Turk
will never understand. I therefore asked them what they
thought would be the future of the country. They looked
at one another, and the Archbishop answered :

" I do not know. I have thought deeply on the subject,
and I can see no future for Syria, whichever way I turn."

That is the only credible answer I have heard to any part
of the Turkish question.

The air of Aleppo is judged by the Sultan to be particularly
suitable for pashas who have fallen under his displeasure at
Constantinople. The town is so full of exiles that even
the most casual visitor can scarcely help making acquaint-
ance with a few of them. One was lodged in my hotel, a mild-
mannered dyspeptic, whom no one would have suspected of
revolutionary sympathies. Probably he was indeed without
them, and owed his banishment merely to some chance word,
reported and magnified by an enemy or a spy. I was to see
many of these exiles scattered up and down Asia Minor, and
none that I encoimtered could tell me for what cause they
had suffered banishment. Some, no doubt, must have had
a suspicion, and some were perfectly well aware of their offence,
but most of them were as innocently ignorant as they professed
to be. Now this has a wider bearing on the subject of Turkish
patriotic feeling thaij may at first appear; for the truth is
that these exiled pashas are very rarely patriots paying the
price of devotion to a national ideal, but rather men whom
an unlucky turn of events has alienated from the existing
order, if there is any chance that they may be taken back
into favour you will find them nervously anxious, even in
exile, to refrain from action that would tend to increase official
suspicion; and it is only when they have determined that
there is no hope for them as long as the present Sultan lives,
that they are willing to associate freely with Europeans or to
speak openly of their grievances. There is, so far as I can see,
no organised body of liberal opinion in Turkey, but merely indi-
vidual discontents, founded pn personal misfortune. It seems
improbable that when the exiles return to Constantinople

268 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

on the death of the Sultan they will provide any scheme of re-
form or show any desire to alter a systemunderwhich, by the
natural revolution of affairs, they will again find themselves
persons of consideration.

There is another form of exile to be met with in Turkey,
the honourable banishment of a distant appointment. To
this class, I fancy, belongs Nazim Pasha himself, and so does
my friend Muhammad 'Ali Pasha of Aleppo. The latter
is an agreeable man of about thirty, married to an English
wife. He accompanied me to the Vali's house, obtained
permission that I should see the citadel, and in many ways
contrived to make himself useful. His wife was a pleasant
little lady from Brixton ; he had met her in Constantinople
and there married her, which may, for ought I know, have
been partly the reason of his fall from favour, the English
nation not being a gens grata at Yildiz Kiosk. Muhammad
'Ali Pasha is a gentleman in the full sense of the word, and
he seems to have made his wife happy ; but it must be clearly
understood that I could not as a genereJ rule recommend
Turkish pashas as husbands to the maidens of Brixton.
Though she played tennis at the Tennis Club, and went to
the sewing parties of the European colony, she was obliged
to conform to some extent to the habits of Moslem women.
She never went into the streets without being veiled ;
" because people would tsdk if a pasha's wife were to show
her face," said she.

We reached the citadel in the one hour of sunlight that
shone on Aleppo during my stay, and were taken round by
polite officers, splendid in uniforms and clanking swords and
spurs, who were particularly anxious that I should not miss
the small mosque in the middle of the fortress, erected on the
very spot where Abraham milked his cow. The very name
of Aleppo, said they, is due to this historic occurrence, and
there can be no doubt that its Arabic form, IJaleb, is com-
posed of the same root letters as those that form the verb to
milk. In spite of the deep significance of the mosque, I was
more interested in the view from the top of the minaret.
The Mesopotamian plain lay outspread before us, as flat as a
board — Euphrates stream is visible from that tower on a

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 269

clear day, and indeed you might see Baghdad but for the
tiresome way in which the round earth curves, for there is
no barrier to the eye in all that great level. Below us, were
the clustered roofs of bazaar and kh5n, with here and there
a bird's-eye glimpse of marble court3'ards, and here and there
the fine spire of a minaret. Trees and water were lacking
in the landscape, and water is the main dif&culty in Aleppo
itself. The slu^sh stream that flows out of the Matkh
dries up in the summer, and the wells are brackish all the year
round. Good drinking water must be brought from a great
distance and costs every household at least a piastre a day,
a serious addition to the cost of living. But the climate is
good, sharply cold in winter and not over hot for more than
a month or two in the summer. Such is Aleppo, the great city
with the high-sounding name and the traces of a splendid
past.

CHAPTER XII

All my leisure moments during the two daj^ in Aleppo
were occupied in changing muleteers. It seemed a necessary,
if a regrettable measure. At Antioch we should reach the
limits of the Arabic-speaking population. IJabib and his
father had no word of Turkish, Mikhail owned to a few sub-
stantives such as egg, milk and piastre, while I was scarcely
more accomplished. I shrank from plunging with my small
party into lands where we should be unable to do more than
proclaim our most pressing needs or ask the way. The re-
markable aptitude of north Syrian muleteers had been much
vaunted to me — the title of muleteer is really a misnomer,
for as a fact the beast of burden in these parts is a sorry nag,
kadish, as it is called in Arabic ; from Alexandretta to Konia
I doubt if we ever saw a mule, certainly we never saw a
caravan of mules. I had heard, then, that I should not begin
to know what it was to travel in comfort, without worry or
responsibility, and with pimctucdity and speed, until I had
reorganised my service, and that when I reached Konia I
should be able to break up my caravan if I pleased, and as I
pleased, and the Aleppo men Would find their way home
with another load. So I said good-bye to my Beyroutis —
and to peace.

The system on which the journey was henceforth con-
ducted was the sweating system. The sweater was a tootli-
less old wretch, Faris by name, who shared with his brother
one of the largest teams of baggage animals in Aleppo.
Owing to his lack of teeth he spoke Arabic and Turkish equally
incomprehensibly ; he supplied me with four baggage-horses
and rode himself on a fifth, for his own convenience and at
his own expense, though he tried vainly to make me pay for
his mount when we reached Konia ; he hired two boys, at a

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 271

starvation wage, to do all the work of the camp and the
march, and fed them on starvation fare. This unhappy
couple went on foot (the independent men of the Lebanon
iiad provided themselves with donkeys), and it was a part
of their contract with Faris that he should give them shoes*
but he refused to do so until I interfered and threatened to
dock his wages of the price of the shoes and buy them myself.
I was obliged also to look into the commissariat and see that
the pair had at least enough food to keep them in working
condition ; but in spite of all my efforts the hired boys deserted
at every stage, and I suffered continual annoyance from the
delays caused by the difficulty of finding others, and, still
more, from the necessity of teaching each, new couple the
details of their work — where the tent pegs were to be placed,
how the loads were to be divided, and a hundred other small
but important matters. I had also to goad Faris, who was
furnished with a greater number of excuses for shirking labour
than any man in Aleppo, into doing some share of his duty,
and to superintend night and morning the feeding of my
horses, which would otherwise have escaped starvation as
narrowly as the hired boys. Finally, when we came to Konia,
I found that Faris had turned the last of his slaves on to the
street, and had refused categorically to take them back to
their home at Adana, saying that when he escaped from my
eye he could get cheaper men than they ; and since I would
not abandon two boys who had, according to their stupid
best, done what they could to serve me, I was obliged to help
them to return to their native place. To sum up the evidence,
I should say that those who recommend the muleteers of
Aleppo and their abominable system can never have directed
a well-trained and well-organised camp, where the work goes
as regularly as Big Ben, and the men have cheerful faces and
willing hands, nor can they have experience of real business-
like travel, for that is possible only with servants who show
courage in difficulties, enterprise and resource. I admit that
my experience is small, and I confidently assert that it will
never be larger, for I would bnng muleteers from Baghdad
rather than engage Faris or his like a second time.
It was just when the difficulties of the journey multiplied

272 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

that Mikhail's virtue collapsed. Two days spent in drinking
the health of his departing companions, with whom he was
on excellent terms, as the members of a good camp should be,
were enough to shatter the effects of two months' sobriety.
From that: time forward the 'arak bottle bulked large in his
saddle-bags, and though an 'arak bottle can be searched for
and found in saddle-bags and broken on a stone, no amount
of vigilance could keep Mikhail out of the wine shop when
we reached a town. Adversity teaches many lessons ; I look
back with mingled feelings upon the uneasy four weeks between
our departure from Aleppo and the time when Providence
sent me another and a better man and I hardened my heart
to dismiss MikhaU, but 1 do not regret the schooling that was
forced on me.

Hajj Mahmud reached at Aleppo the term of his commission,
and from him also I took a most reluctant farewell. The Vali
provided me with a zaptieh whose name was Hajj Najib, a
Kurd of unprepossessing appearance, who proved on acquain-
tance a useful and obliging man, familiar with the district
through which we travelled together, and with the people
inhabiting it. We were late in starting, Mikhail being sodden
with 'arak and the muleteers unhandy with the loads. The
day (it was March 30) was cloudless, and for the first time
the sun was unpleasantly hot. When we rode away at ten
o'clock it was already blazing fiercely upon us, and the whole
day long there was not a scrap of shade in all the barren track.
We followed for a mile or so the Alexandretta high road, passing
a cafe with a few trees about it, soon after which we struck
aw?*y to the left and entered a path that led us into the bare
rocky hills, and speedily became as rocky as thej Our course
was east with a touch of north. At half-past twelve we stopped
to lunch, and waited a full hour for the baggage, during which
time I had leisure to reflect upon the relative marching speed
of the new servants and the old, and on the burning heat of the
sun that had not been so noticeable when we were riding.
Half an hour further we passed a hovel, Yakit 'Ades, where
Najib suggested that we might camp. But I decided that it
was too early, and after we had given strict injunctions to
Faris concerning the route he was to follow and the exact spot

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 273

where we should camp, the zaptieh and I bettered our pace,
and without going beyond a walk were soon out of sight of the
others. We rode along the bottom of a bare winding valley,
past several places that were marked on the map though
they were no more than the smallest heaps of ruins, and at
four o'clock turned up the northern slope of the valley and
reached a hamlet, unknown to Kiepert, which Najib informed
me to be Kbeshm. Here amid a few old walls and many
modem refuse-heaps we found a Kurdish camp, one of the
spring-time camps in which half nomadic people dwell with
their flocks at the season of fresh grass. The walls of the tents,
if tents they may be called, were roughly built of stone to a
height of about five feet, but the roofs were of goats' hair cloth,
raised in the centre by tent poles. The Kurdish shepherds
crowded round us and conversed with Najib in their own
tongue, which sounded vaguely famihar on account of its like-
ness to Persian. They spoke Arabic also, a queer jargon full
of Turkish words. We sat for some time on the rubbish-heap,
watching for the baggage animals till I became convinced, in
spite of Najib's assurances, that some hitch must have occurred
and that we might watch for ever in vain. At this point the
Kurdish sheikh announced that it was dinner time, and invited
us to share the meal. One of the advantages of out-door life
on short commons being that there is no moment of the day
when you are not willing and ready to eat, we fell in joyfully
with the suggestion.

The Kurd has not been given a good name in the annals of
travel. Report would have him both sulky and quarrelsome,
but for my part I have found him to be endowed with most of
the quaUties that make for agreeable social intercourse. We
were ushered into the largest of the houses ; it was hght and
cool, airy and clean, its peculiar construction giving it the
advantages of house and of tent. The food consisted of new
bread and sour curds and of an excellent pillaf , in which cracked
wheat was substituted for rice. It was spread upon a mat, and
we sat round upon rugs while the women served us. By
the time we had finished it was six o'clock but no caravan had
appeared. Najib was much perplexed, and our hosts sym-
pathised deeply with our case, while declaring that they were

274 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

more than willing to keep us for the night. Our hesitation
was cut short by a small boy who came running in with the
news that a caravan had been seen to pass by the village of
Fafertin on the opposite side ol the valley, and that it was then
heading for Kal'at Sim'Sn, oiir ultimate destmation. There
was no tune to be lost, the sun had set, and I had a vivid recol-
lection of our wanderings in the night about El BUrah in a

country not dissimilar from that which lay in front of us, but
before we started I took Najib aside and asked him whether I
might give money in return for my entertainment. He replied
that on no account was it to be thought of, Kiu^ds do not
expect to be paid by their guests. All that was left me was
to summon the children and distribute a handful of metaliks
among them, an inexpensive form of generosity, and one that
could not outrage the most susceptible feehngs. We set off,
Najib leading the way and riding so quicldy along the stony
path that I had the greatest difficulty in keeping up with him.
I knew that the great church of St. Simon Stylites stood upon
a hill and must be visible from afar, though tiie famous column
of the saint, round wliich the church was built, had fallen
centuries ago. After an hour's stumbling ride Najib pointed
silently to the dim hills, and I could just make out a mass of

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 275

something that looked like a fortress breaking the line of the
summit. We hurried on for another half hour and reached
the walls at 7.30 in complete darkness. As we rode throu^
the huge chiorch we heard to our relief a tinkle of caravan bells
that assured vs of the arrival of the tents — we heard also the
shouts and objurgations of Mikhail, who, under the influence of
potations of 'arak, was raging like a wild beast and refusing to

give the new muleteers any hint as to the way in which to deal
with my English tent. Since I was the only sane person who
knew how the poles were to be fitted together, the pegs driven
in and the furniture opened out, I was obliged to do the greater
part of the work myself by the light of two candles, and when
that was over to search the canteen for bread and semen for
the muleteers, an order to my rebellious cook that he should
prepare the customary evening meal of rice having been greeted
with derisive howls mingled with curses on all and sundry.
It is ill arguing with a drunken man, but with what feelings I
kept silence I hope that the recording angel may have omitted
to note.

At last, when all was ready, I wandered away into the sweet
Spring night, through the stately and peaceful church below
the walls of which we were lying, and presently found myself

276 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

in a circular court, open to the sky, from whence the four arms
of the church reach out to the four points of the compass.
The court had been set roimd with a matchless colonnade, of
which many of the arches are still standing, and in the centre
rose in fonrier days the column whereon St. Simon lived and
died. I scrambled over the heaps of ruin till I came to the rock-
hewn base of that very column, a broad block of splintered
stone with a depression in the middle, like a little bowl, filled
with clear rain water in which I washed my hands and face.
There was no moon; the piers and arches stood in ruined
and shadowy splendour, the soft air lay still as an unruffled
pool, weariness and vexation dropped from the spirit, and left
it bare to Heaven and the Spring. I sat and thought how
perverse a trick Fortune had played that night on the grim
saint. She had given for a night his throne of bitter dreams
to one whose dreams were rosy with a deep content that he
would have been the first to condemn. So musing I caught
the eye of a great star that had climbed up above the broken
line of the arcade, and we agreed together that it was better
to journey over earth and sky than to sit upon a column all
your days.

The members of the American survey have mapped and
thoroughly explored the northern mountains as far as Kal'at
Sim'an, but neither they nor any other travellers have pub-
lished an accoimt of the hilly region to the north-east of the
shrine.* I, who rode through it, and visited almost all the
ruined villages, found that it was generally known to the
inhabitants as the Jebel Sim'an, by which title I shall speak
of it. The Mountains of Simon, with the Jebel Barisha, to
the south-west, and the Jebel el 'Ala still further to the west,
belong to the same architectural system as the Jebel Zawi3^eh,
through which we had passed on our way to Aleppo. It
would be possible to draw distinctions of style between the
northern group and the southern ; the American architect, Mr.
Butler, with his wide experience of the two districts, has been

• Since writing this chapter I have learnt that Mr. Butler and his
party extended their explorations to the north of Kal'at Sim'an
after my departure, and I look forward to a full description of the
district in their future publications.

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 277

able to do so, but to the hasty observer the difEerences appear to
depend chiefly on natural conditions and on the fact that the
northern district fell more directly under the influence of An-
tioch, the city which was one of the main sources of artistic
inspiration (not for Syria alone) in the early centuries of
the Christian era.
The settlements in
the Jebel Sim'an are
smaller and the in-
dividual houses less
spacious, possibly be-
cause the northern
mountains were
much more rugged
and unable to sup-
port so large and
wealthy a popula-
tion ; they would
seem to have begun
earlier and to have
reached the highest
point of their pros-
perity a little later,
nor did they suffer
the period of decline

which is evident in kal'at sim'an thb west door

the South during the

century preceding the Arab invasion.* The finest sixth-crjtury
churches in the north show an almost florid luxuriance of
decoration unapproached in the latest of the Southern churches,
all of which are to be dated a century earlier, except the Bizzos
church at RuweihS. It is interesting to observe that the
Ruweiha church, though it is a little later than Kal'at Sim'an,
* I would suggest that this decline was due in part to the excessive
burden of taxation laid by Justinian on the eastern provinces of his
empire during his efiorts to recover the western. Readers of Diehl's
great work on Justinian will remember bow the social and poUtical
organisation of his dominions collapsed under the strain of his wars
in Italy and North Africa. The eastern parts of the empire were
the richest and sufiered the most.

278 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

is far more severe in detail, and to this it may be added that
even small houses in the north present not infrequently a
greater variety and lavishness of decoration than is customary
in the South.* Wlien the traveller reads the inscriptions on
church and dwelling, and finds the dates reckoned in the north
always by the era of Antioch, he may be pardoned for sur-

mising that it was the magnificent hand of Antioch that touched
here architrave and capital, moulding and string-course. The
church of St. Simon was raised not by local effort only but as a
tribute to the famous saint from the whole Christian world,
and probably it was not executed by local workmen but by the
builders and stone-cutters of Antioch ; if that be so it is diffi-
cult not to attribute the lovely church of Kalb Lozeh to the
same creative forces, and a dozen smaller examples, such as the
east church at Bakirha, must be due to similar influences.

I spent the morning examining the church of St. Simon and
the village at the foot of the hill, which contains some very
perfect basilicas and the ruins of a great hostelry for pilgrims.

* This was noticed by Mr. Butler, " Architecture and other Arts."

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 279

At lunch time there appeared upon the scene a Kurd, so
engaging and intelUgent that I immediately selected hmi to be
my guide during the next few daj^, the district I proposed to
visit being blank on the map, stony and roadlcsH. Musa was
the name of my new friend, and as we rode together in the
afternoon he confided to my private ear that he was by creed

a Yezidi, whom the Mohammedans call Devil Worshippers,
though I fancy they are a harmless and well-meaning people.
The upper parts of Mesopotamia are their home, and from
thence Musa's family had originally migrated. We talked of
beliefs as we went, guardedly, since our acquaintance was as yet
young, and Musa admitted that the Yezidis worshipped the
sun. " A very proper object of adoration," said I, and thinking
to please him went on to mention that the Ismailis worshipped
both sun and moon, but he could scarcely control his disgust
at the thought of such idolatry. This led me to consider within
myself whether the world had grown much wiser since the days
when St. Simon sat on his column, and the conclusion that I
reached was not flattering.

28o THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

The rain intemipted our wanderings among the villages at
the foot of Jebcl Sheikh Barakat, the high peak to the south-
east of Kal'at Sim'an, and drove us home, but the clouds lifted
again towards evening, iind I, watching from the marvellous
west door, saw the hills turn the colour of red copper and the
greiy walls of the church to gold. Mikh&il, depressed and

r ■ ""

repentant, served me with an excellent dinner, in spite of
which I should have dismissed him if St. Simon could have
supphed me with another cook. Indeed, I was half inclined
to sen{^back to Aleppo for a new man, but the doubt whether
I should secure a good servant by proxy, combined with the
clemency of indolence, led me to a course of inaction which I
attempted to justify by the hope that Mikhail's repentance
would be of a lasting nature. Thus for a month we lived on
A volcano with occasional eruptions, and were blown up at
the end, * But enough of this painful subject.

Next day I set off with Musa to explore the villages in the
Jebel Sim'an to the east and north-east of the church of St.
Simon. We rode almost due east for rather less than an hour
to Burjkeh, which exhibited all the characteristics of thesp

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 281

villages of the extreme north. It had the tall square tower,
whicli is nearly universal. All the stone work was massive,
(he blocks frequently laid not in courses, or if so laid, the courses
showed great variety of depth. The church had a square apse,
built out beyond the walls of the nave, and a running moulding
hooded each window, passed along the level of the sill from one

window to another, and ended beyond the last in a spiral, as
though it had been a bit of ribbon festooned over the openings
with the surplus rolled up. This moulding is pecuHarto sixth-
century decoration in North Syria. The houses of Burjkeh
were very simple square cottages, built of polygonal masonry.
Musa got wind of a newly opened tomb near the church. I
contrived with some difficulty to crawl down into it, and was
rewarded by finding on one of the loculi the date 292 of the era
of Antioch, which corresponds to 243 A.D. Below the date were
three lines of Greek inscription, much defaced. We. rode on
for half an hour to Surkanya, a deserted village, charmingly
situated at the head of a shallow rocky valley in which there

282 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

were even a few trees. The houses were exceptionally massive
in construction, with heavy stone balconies forming a porch
over the door. One was dated, and the year was 406 A.D.
The church was almost exactly similar to that at Burjkeh.
Another three quarters of an hour to the north and we reached
_ Fafertin, where it began to
I rain. We took shelter under

an apse, which was all that
remained of a church larger
than any we had yet seen,
but rude in workmanship.*
The village was inhabited by
a few famihes of Yezidi
Kurds. In the streaming
rain we rode for an hour
north-east to Khirab esh
Shems, but could do nothing
there owing to the weather,
and so north by Kaloteh to
Burj el Kas, where I ioxmd
my tents pitched on a damp
sward. Musa was much dis-
tressed by the heavy rain,
and said that the wet spring
had been disastrous to his
fields, washing down the soil
from the high ground into
A FUNERAL MONUMENT :;t I ^^^ vallcys. Thc work of
, denudation, which has so

greatly diminished the fertihty of North Syria, is still going
foi^ward. •

At Burj el Kas there was a square tower on the top of the
hill and some old houses that had been repaired and re-inhabited
by the Kurds. On one lintel I saw the date 406 A.D., on another
an inscnption diificult to decipher. The end of this stone was
hidden by the angle of a rebuilt house, but peering along it I

• Butler in his report states that this church is dated 372 a.d.,
which gives it the distinction ot being thc earliest dated church in
Syria, if not the earliest dated church in the world.

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 285

could just make out that there was a small carving at the ex-
treme point. The owner of the house announced that it repre-
sented without doubt the Lady Mary. This would have been
a curious addition to the meagre collection o£ sculpture in
North Syria, as well as a theological innovation, and I
expressed my regret that 1 could not see it better. There-
upon my friend fetched a pickaxe and chipped off a corner

of his house, and the figure of tlie Virgin proved to be a
Roman eagle.

With Najib and Miisa I returned to the villages that I had
passed in the rain the previous day. We left Najib with the
horses at Kaloteh, and ourselves walked to Khirab esh Shems,
the path being so rocky that I wislied to spare my beasts a
second journey over it, Khirab esh Shems contained a fine
church, twenty-one paces long from the west door to the chord of
the apse. The outer walls to north and south had fallen, leav-
ing only the five arches on either side of the nave with a clere-
story pierced by ten small round-headed windows, a charming
fragment like a detached loggia. Further up the hill stood a
massive chapel, destitute of aisles, with an apse built out and
roofed with a semi-dome of square slabs, resembling the fifth

286 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

century baptistery at Dar Kita.* In the hill side we found
a number of rock-hewn tombs, in one of which I had the
satisfaction to discover some curious reliefs. On the loculus
to the left of the door were four roughly carved figures,
their arms raised in the attitude of prayer, and on the
rock wall in a dark comer a single figure clothed in a shirt
and a pointed cap, holding a
curious object, like a basket,
in the right hand. Return-
ing to Kaloteh we visited ar
isolated church on some high
ground to the west of the
village. On the wall by the
south door there was a long
inscription in Greek, The
nave was separated from the
aisles by four columns on
either side, some of which (to
judge by the fragments) had
been fluted and some plain.
The arcade ended against
the comer of the apse with
engaged fluted columns carry-
ing beautiful Corinthian capi-
tals. The apse, prothesis and
diaconicum were all con-
tained within the outer wall
of the church. The west door showed a stilted relieving arch
above a broken lintel, the lintel decorated with a row of
dentils. » To the south of the church there was a detached
baptisterj', some 9 ft. square inside, the walls still carrying
the first course of the stone vault. The church must have
been roofed with tiles, for I saw a number of fragments
lying in the nave. A massive enclosing wall surrounded
both church and baptistery. The village below contained two
churches, that to the v,-est measuring 38 ft. by 68 ft., the
other 48 ft. by 70 it. The mouldings round tlie doors in
both churches indicate that they cannot iiave been eariier than
• Butler, '• Architecture and other Arts," p. 1 39.

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 287

the sixth century. There were also some houses with stone
verandahs.

An hour and a half to the north-west of Kaloteh lies BarSd,
the laigfst snd most interesting of the villages in the Jebel
Sim'an. It is partly le-inhabited by Kurds. I found my
ca:np pitchej in an •pen space opposite a very lovely funeral
mcnument conabtuif oi a canopy carried by four piers set on a

h%h podium. Near it stood a large rock-cut sarcophagus and
a number of other tombs, partly rock-cut and partly built. I
examined two churches in the centre of tlie town. In one the
nave, 68 ft. 6 in. long, was divided from the aisles by four great
piers, 6 ft. deep from east to west, with an intercolumniation
of 18 ft. The nave was 33 ft. wide and the apse 12 ft. deep.
The wide intercolumniation is a proof of a comparatively late
date, sixth century or thereabouts. The second church was still
larger, 118 ft. 6 in. by 73 ft. 6 in., but completely ruined except
for the west wall and part of the apse. To the north of it there
was a small chapel, with an apse perfectly preserved ; near it
lay a sarcophagus which suggested that the chapel may have
tteen a mausoleum. The eastern end of the town contained i,
complex of buildings of polygonal masonry, including a square

288 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

enclosure with a square chamber m the centre of it, resting on a
vault that was possibly a tomb. To the extreme west of the
town stood a fine tower with some large and well preserved houses
near it. A small church lay between it and the main body of
the town. Near my camp was a curious building with two
apses irregularly placed in the east wall. I take it to have
been pre-Christian. The walls stood up to the vault, which
was perfectly preserved. While Musa and I measured and
planned this building we were watched by two persons in long
white robes and turbans, who exhibited the greatest interest in
our movements. They were, said Musa, Government officials,
sent into the Jebel Sim'an to take a census of the population
with a view to lev5dng the capitation tax.

The next day was one of the most disagreeable that I re-
member. A band of thick cloud stretched across the sky imme-
diately above the Jebel Sim'an, keeping us in a cold grey shadow,
while to north and south we saw the mountains and the plain
bathed in sunshine. We rode north for about an hour to Kei-
far, a large village near the extreme edge of the Jebel Sim'an.
Beyond the valley of the Afrin, which bounds the hills to the
north-west, rose the first great buttresses of the Giour Dagh
Musa observed that in the valley and the further hills there
were no more ruined villages ; they end abruptly at the limits
of the Jebel Sim'an, and Syrian civilisation seems to have
penetrated no further to the north, for what reason it is im-
possible to say. At Keifar there were three churches much
ruined, but showing traces of decoration exquisitely treated, a
few good houses, and a canopy tomb something like the one at
Barad. There was a large population of Kurds. We rode
back to Barad and so south-east to Kefr Nebu, about an houi
and a half away through bitter wind and rain. There was a
Syriac inscription here on a lintel, one or two Kufic tomb-
stones, and a very splendid house partially restored, but
I was a great deal too cold to give them the attention
they deserved. Chilled to the bone and profoundly dis-
couraged by attempts at taking time exposures in a high
wind, I made straight for my tents at Basufan, an hour's
ride from Kefr Nebu, leaving unexplored a couple of ruined
sites to the south.

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 291

Musa's home is at BSsufan ; we met his father in the corn-
fields as we came up, and :

"God strengthen your body : " cried Musa, giving the saluta-
tion proper to one working in the fields.

" And your body ! " he answered, Ulting his dim eyes to us.

" He is old," explained Musa as we rode on, " and trouble has

fallen on him, but once he was the finest man in the Jebel
Sim'an, and the best shot."

" What trouble ? " said I.

" My brother was slain by a blood enemy a Jew months ago,"
he answered. "We do not know who it was that killed him,
but perhaps it was one of his bride's family, for he took her
without their consent."

" And what has happened to the bride ? " I asked-

" She has gone back to her own family," said he. " But
she wept bitterly."

Basufan is used as a Sommerfrische by certain Jews and
Christians of Aleppo, who come out and live in the houses of the
Kurds during the hot months, the owners being at that season
in tents. There are a few big trees to the south of the village

292 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

sheltering a large graveyard, which is occupied mostly by Mos-
lem de^d, brought to this spot from many miles round. The
valley below boasts a famous spring, a spring that never runs
dry even in rainless years when all its sister fountains are ex-
hausted.

The Kurds used to grow tobacco on the neighbotuing slopes,
and the quality of the leaf was much esteemed, so that the crop
foimd a ready sale, till the Government r^gie was established
and paid the Kurds such miserable prices that they were unable
to make a profit. As there was no other market, the industry
ceased altogether, and the. fields have passed out of cultivation
except for the raising of a little com : " and now we are all
poor," said Musa in conclusion.

I had not been an hour in camp before the rain stopped and
the sun Tame out, bringing back our energy with it. There was
a large church at BasufSn, which had been converted at some
period into a fort by the addition of three towers. What
remained of the original building was of excellent work. The
engaged columns by the apse were adorned with spiral flutings
— the first example I had seen — and the Corinthian capitals were
deep and careful in cutting. Musa showed me a Sjoiac inscrip-
tion in the south wall, which I copied with great labour and
small success : the devil take all Syriac inscriptions, or endow
all travellers with better wits ! When this was done there still
remained a couple of hours of afternoon light, and I determined
to walk over the hills to Bur] Heida and Kefr Lab, which I had
omitted in the morning owing to the rain and the cold. Musa
acco npanied me, and took with him his " partner " — so he was
introduced to me, but in what enterprise he shared I do not
know. Bur] Heida was well worth the visit. It contained a
square tower and three churches, one exceedingly well pre-
served, with an interesting building annexed to it, perhaps a
lodging for the clergy. But the expedition was chiefly memo-
rable on account of the conversation of my two companions.
With Musa I had contracted, during the three days we had passed
together, a firm friendship, based on my side on gratitude for
the services he had rendered me, coupled with a warm apprecia-
tion of the beaming smile that accompanied them. We had
reached a point of familiarity where I thought I might fairly

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 293

expect him to enlighten me on the Yezidi doctrines, for, what-
ever may be the custom in Em-ope, in Asia it is not polite to
ask a man what he believes imless he regards you as an intimate.
Nor is it expedient ; it awakens suspicion without evoking a
satisfactory answer. 1 began delicately as we sat in the door-
way of the little church at Kefr Lab by asking whether the
Yezidis possessed mosque of church.

*' No," replied Musa. " We worship under the open sky.
Every day at dawn we worship the sun."

" Have you," said I, '' an imam who leads the prayer ? "

" On feast days," said he, " the sheikh leads the prayer, but
on other days every man worships for himself. We count
some days lucky and some imlucky. Wednesday, Friday and
Sunday are our lucky days, but Thursday is unlucky."

" Why is that ? " said I.

" 1 do not know," said Musa. " It is so."

'* Are you," I asked, " fnends with the Mohammadans or
are you foes ? "

He answered : *' Here in the country round Aleppo, where
we are few, they do not fear us, and we live at peace with them ;
but every year there comes to us from Mosul a very learned
sheikh who collects tribute among us, and he wonders to see us
like brothers with the Muslimin, for in Mosul, where the Yezidis
are many, there is bitter feud. In Mosul our people wiU not
serve in the army, but here we serve like any other — I myself
have been a soldier."

" Have you holy books } " said I.

"Without doubt," said he, "and I will tell you what
our books teach us. When the end of the world is near
Hadudmadud will appear on earth. And before his time
the race of men will have shrunk in stature so that they are
smaller than a blade of grass, — ^but Hadudmadud is a mighty
giant. And in seven days, or seven months, or seven years, he
will drink all the seas and all the rivers, and the earth will be
drained dry."

" And then," said the partner, who had followed Musa's
explanation eagerly, " out of the dust will spring a great worm,
and he will devour Hadudmadud."

" And when he has eaten him," continued Musa, " there will

294 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

be a flood which will last seven days, or seven months, or seven
years."

" And the earth will be washed clean," diimed in the
partner.

" And then will come the Mahdi," said Musa, "and he will
summon the four sects, Yezidis, Christians, Moslems and Jews,
and be will appoint the prophet of each sect to coUect his fol-
lowers together. And Yezid will assemble the Yezidis, and
Jesus the Christians, and Muhammad the Moslems, and Moses
the Jews. But those that while they lived changed from one
faith to another, they shall be tried by fire, to see what creed
they profess in their hearts. So shall each prophet know his
own. This is the end of the world."

" Do you," said I, " consider all the four faiths to be equal ? "

Musa replied (diplomatically perhaps) : " The Christians and
the Jews we think equal to us."

" And the Moslems ? " I inquired.

*' We think them to be swine," said Musa.

These are the tenets of Musa's faith, and what they signify
I will not pretend to say, but Hadudmadud is probably Gog-
magog, if that throws any light on the matter.

The sun was setting when we rose from the church step and
began to clamber homeward over the ruins of Kefr Lab. There
was some broken groimd beyond the \illage, and I noticed
large cavities under the rocks at the top of the hill. Before
them Musa's partner paused, and said :

" In this manner of place we look for treasure."

" And do you find it } " said I.

He replied : " I have never found any, but there are many
tales. Once, they say, there was a shepherd boy who lost his
goat and searched for it over the hills, and at last he came
upon it in a cave full of gold coins. Therefore he dosed the
mouth of the cave and hastened home to fetch an ass whereon
he might load the gold, and in his haste he left the goat in the
cave. But when he returned there was neither cave, nor goat,
nor gold, search as he would."

" And another time," said Musa, " a boy was sleeping in the
ruins of Kefr Lab and he dreamt that he had discovered a great
treasure in the earth and that he had dug for it with his hands.

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 295

and when he woke his hands were covered with the dust of gold
but no memory remained to him of the place wherein he had
dug."

Neither of these stories offer sufficient data, however, to
warrant the despatch
of a treasure-hunting
expedition to the
Jebel Sim'an.

As we reached
B^suf^n Miisa asked
whether his sister
Wardeh {the Rose)
might honour herself
by paying her re-
spects to me. " And
will you," he added,
" persuade her to
marry ? "

" To marry ? " said
I. " Whom should
she marry ? "

" Any one," said
Musa imperturbably.
" She has declared
that marriage is hate-
ful to her, and that
she will remain in our

father's house, and bXsofax, a kurdish g.rl

we cannot move her. Yet she is a young maid and fair."

She looked very fair, and modest besides, as she stood at thi
door of my tent in the pretty dress of ihe Kurdish women, with a
bowl of kaimak in her hands, a propitiatory gift to me ; and I
confess I did not insist upon the marriage question, thinking
that she could best manage her own affairs. She brought me
new bread for breakfast next morning, and begged me to come
and visit her father's house before I left. This I did, and found
the whole family, sons and daughters-in-law and grand-
chUdren, assembled to welcome me ; and though I had but
recently breakfasted, the old father insisted on setting bread

296 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

and bowls of cream before me, " that the bond of hospitality
may be between us." Fine, well-built people were they all,
with beautiful faces, illumined by the smile that was Musa's
chief attraction. For their sake the Kurdish race shall hold
hereafter a large place in my esteem.

CHAPTER XIII

We started from Basufan at eight o'clock on the morning of
April 4, and rode south by incredibly stony tracks, leaving
Kal'at Sim'an to the west and skirting round the eastern
flanks of the Jebel Sheikh Barakat. Musa declared that he
must accompany us on the first part of our way, and came with
us to Deiret 'Azzeh, a large Mohammadan village of from three
nundred to four himdred houses. Here he left us, and we went
down into the fertile plain of Sermeda, ringed round with the
slopes of th^ Jebel Halakah. At mid-day we reached the large
village of Dana, and lunched by the famous third-century tomb
that de Vogu6 published, to my mind the loveliest of the
smaller monuments of North Syria and worthy in its delicate
simplicity to stand by the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates at
Athens. There was nothing else to detain us at Dana, and
having waited for the baggage animals to come up I sent them
on with Mikhail and a local guide, bidding them meet Najlb
and me at the ruins of Dehes. After some consultation Najib
and the local man decided on the spot, known to me only from
the accounts of travellers, and it was not till we had reached it
that I discovered that we were at Mehes instead of Dehes. It
was all one, however, since we had met and foimd the place to
be a convenient camping-ground. From Dana, Najib took me
north along the Roman road by a Roman triumphal arch,
the Bab el Hawa, finely situated at the entrance of a rocky
valley. • We rode along this valley for a mile or two, passing a
ruined church, and stmck up the hills to the west by a gorge that
brought us out on to a wide plateau close to the deserted village
of Ksejba.* We went on to the village of Babiska, through
country which was scattered with flowers and with ^oups of

• The ancient towns in the Jebel Barisha have been visited and
described by the American Expedition.

298 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

ruined houses and churches : the heart leapt at the sight of
such lonely and unravished beauty. On these hilltops it Wcis
difficult to say where stood BSkirha, the town I wished to
visit, but near Babiska we found a couple of shepherd tents,
and from one of the inhabitants inquired the way. The shep-
herd was a phlegmatic man ; he said there was no road to
Bakirha, and that the afternoon had grown too late for such an
enterprise, moreover he himself was starting off in another
direction with a basket of eggs and could not help us. I, how-
ever, had not ridden so many miles in order to be defeated
at the last, and with some bullying and a good deal of per-
suasion we induced the shepherd to show us the way to the foot
of the hill on which Bakirha stands. He walked with us for an
hour or so, then pointed towards the summit of the Jebel
Barisha and saying, " There is BSkirha," he left us abruptly
and returned to his basket of eggs.

High up on the mountain side we saw the ruins bathed in the
afternoon sun, and having looked in vain for a path we pushed
our horses straight in among the boulders and brakes of flowering
thorn. But there is a limit to the endurance even of Syrian
horses, and ours had almost reached it after a long day spent iu
clambering over stones. We had still to get into camp. Heaven
alone knew how far away ; yet I could not abandon the shining
walls that were now so close to us upon the hill, and I told the
reluctant Najib to wait below with the horses while I climbed
up alone. The day was closing in, and I climbed in haste ; but
for all my haste the scramble over those steep rocks, half-buried
in flowers and warm with the level sun, is a memory that will
not easily fade. In half an hour I stood at the entrance of
the town, below a splendid basilica rich in varied beauty of de-
coration and design. Beyond it the ruined streets, empty of
all inhabitant^, lay along the mountain side, houses with carved
balconies and deep-porched doorways, columned market-places,
and the golden sunlight over all. But I was bent upon another
pilgrimage. A broad and winding road led up above the town
until it reached the boundary of the flowered slopes, and nothing
except a short rocky face of hill lay between the open ground
where the path ended and the summit of the range. The mountain
was cleft this way and that by precipitous gorges, enclosing

W^ -

TOMB AT DANA

• THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 301

between their escarpments prospects of sunlit fertile plain,
and at the head of the gorges on a narrow shelf of ground stood
a small and exquisite temple. I sat down by the gate through
whicli the worshippers had passed into the temple court. Below
me lay the northern slopes of the Jebel Barisha.and broad
fair valleys and the snow-clad ranks of the Giour Dagh veiled

ki a warm haze. Temple and town and hillside were alike
deserted save that far away upon a rocky spur a shepherd
boy piped a wild sweet melody to his scattered flocks. The
breath of the reed is the very voice of solitude ; shrill and
clear and passionless it rose to the temple gate, borne on deep
waves of mountain air that were perfumed with flowers and
coloured with the rays of the low sun. Men had come and gone,
life had surged up the flanks of the hills and retreated again,
leaving the old gods to resume their sway over rock and
flowering thorn, in peace and loneliness and beauty.

So at the gate of the sanctuary I offered praise, and having
given thanks went on my way rejoicing.

Najib welcomed me back with expressions of relief.

" By God ! " said he, " I have not smoked a single cigarette

302 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN •

since I lost sight of your Excellency, but all this hour I have
said : ' Please God she will not meet with a robber among
the rocks.' "

Therewith, to make up for lost opportunity, he lighted
the cigarette that his anxiety had not prevented him from
rolling during my absence, and though I will not undertake
to affirm that it was indeed the only one, the sentiment was
gratifying. I thought at the time (but next day's march
proved me to be wrong) that we rode down to the plain of
Sermeda by the roughest track in the world. When we got to
the foot of the hill we turned up a valley to the south, a narrow
ribbon of cultivation winding between stony ranges. Presently
it widened, and we passed a large modem village, where we
received the welcome news that our camp had been seen ahead ;
at a quarter past six we struggled into Mehes or Dehes,
whichever it may have been, feeling that our horses would have
been put to it if they had been asked to walk another mile.
An enchanting camp was Mehes. It was not often that I
could pitch tents far from all habitation. The muleteers
pined for the sour curds and other luxuries of civilisation, and
indeed I missed the curds too, but the charm of a solitary camp
went far to console me. The night was still and clear, we were
lodged in the ruined nave of a church, and we slept the sleep
of the blessed after our long ride.

There was one more ruin that I was determined to visit
before I left the hills. It was the church of Kalb Lozeh, which
from descriptions seemed to be (as indeed it is) the finest build-
ing after Kal'at Sim'an in all North Syria. 1 sent the bag-
gage animals round by the valleys, with strict, but useless,
injunctions to Paris that he was not to dawdle, and set out
with Mikhail and Najib to traverse on horseback two mountain
ranges, the Jebel Barisha and the Jebel el 'Ala. It is best to
do rock climbing on foot ; but if any one would know the full
extent of the gymnastic powers of a horse, he should ride up
the Jebel el 'Ala to Kalb Lozeh. I had thought myself tolerably
well versed in the subject, but I found that the expedition
widened my experience not a little. We rode straight up an
intolerably stony hill to the west of Mehes, and so reached the
summit of the Jebel Barisha. The ground here was much

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 305

broken by rocks, but between them were tiny olive groves and
vineyards and tiny, scattered cornfields. Every ledge and
hollow was a garden of wild flowers; tall blue irises unfurled
their slender buds under sweet-smelling thickets of bay, and the
air was scented with the purple daphne. This paradise was
inhabited by a surly peasant, the least obliging and the most
taciturn of men. After much unsuccessful bargaining (the
price he set on any service he might render us was preposterous,
but we were in his hands and he obliged us to give way) he agreed
to guide us to Kalb Lozeh, and conducted us forthwith down
the Jebd BSrisha by a precipitous path cut out of the living rock.
It was so steep and narrow that when we met a party of women
coming up from the lower slopes with bundles of brushwood
^brushwood ! it was flowering daphne and bay — ^we had great
difficulty in edging past them. At the bottom of this break-
neck descent there was a deep valley with a lake at one end of
it, and in front of us rose the Jebel el 'Ala, to the best of my
judgment a wall of rock, quite impossible for horses to dimb.
The monosyllabic peasant who directed us — I am glad I do not
remember his name — vindicated that our path lay up it, and
Najib seeming to acquiesce, I followed with a sinking heart.
It was indescribable. We jumped and tumbled over the rock
faces and our animals jumped and tumbled after us, scramb-
ling along the edge of little precipices, where, if they had fallen
they must have broken every bone. Providence watched
over us and we got up unhurt into a country as lovely as that
which we had left on top of the Jebel BSLrisha. At the entrance
of an olive grove our guide turned back, and in a few moments
we reached Kalb Lozeh.

Whether there was ever much of a settlement round the great
church I do not know ; there are now but few remains of houses,
and it stands almost alone. It stands too very nearly unrivalled
among the monuments of Syrian art. The towered narthex,
the wide bays of the nave, the apse adorned with engaged
columns, the matchless beauty of the decoration and the jus-
tice of proportion preserved in every part, are the features
that first strike the beholder ; but as he gazes he becomes aware
that this is not only the last word in the history of Syrian
architecture, spoken at the end of many centuries of endeavour,

3C6 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

but that it is also the beginning of a new chapter in the archi-
tecture of the world. The fine and simple beauty of
Romanesque was bom in North Syria. It is curious to con-
sider to what developments the genius of these architects might
have led if they had not been checked by the Arab invasion.
Certain it is that we should have had an independent school
of great builders, strongly influenced perhaps by classical
tradition and yet more strongly by the East, but everywhere
asserting an unmistakable personality as bold as it was
imaginative and delicate. There is little consolation in the
reflection that the creative vigour that is evident at Kalb
Lozeh never had time to pass into decadence.

I had heard or read that in the mountains near Kalb Lozeh
were to be found a few Druze villages, inhabited by emigrants
from the Lebanon, but as I had not yet come upon them I had
almost forgotten their existence. Near the church stood half a
dozen hovels, the inhabitants of which came out to watch me as I
photographed. Almost unconsciously I was struck by some
well-known look in the kohl-blackened eyes and certain pecu-
liarities of manner that are difficult to specify but that com-
bine to form an impression of easy and friendly familiarity
with perhaps a touch of patronage in it. When the women
joined the little crowd my eye was caught by the silver chains
and buckles that they wore, which I remembered vaguely to
have remarked elsewhere. As we were about to leave, an
oldish man came forward and offered to walk with us for an
hour, saying that the way down to Harim was difficult to find,
and we had not walked fifty yards together before I realised
the meaning of my subconscious recognition.

" Masha'llah ! " said I, " you are Druzes.**

The man looked round anxiously at Najib and Mikhail,
following close on our heels, bent his head and walked on
without speaking.

" You need not fear," said L " The soldier and my servant
are discreet men."

He took heart at this and said :

" There are few of us in the mountains, and wc dread the
Mohauimadans and hide from them that we are Druzes, lest
they should drive us out. We are not more than two hundred
houses in all,"

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

309

" I have been hoping to find you," said I, " for I know the
sheikhs in the Hauran, and they have shown me much kindness.
Therefore I desire to salute all Druzes wherever I may meet
with them,"

" Allah ! " said he. " Do you know the Turshan ? "

" By God ! " said I.

"Shibly and
Yahya his brother ? "

" Yahya I know,
but Shibly is dead,"

" Dead ! " he ex-
claimed. " Oh Mer-
ciful 1 Shibly dead ! "
And with that he
drew from me all the
news of the Moun-
t a i n and listened
with rapt attention
to tales for which I
had not thought to
find a willing ear so
far from Salkhad.
Suddenly his ques-
tions stopped and he
swerved oft the path
towards a vineyard in which a young man was pruning the

" Oh my son ! " he cried. " Shibly ei Atrash is dead !
Lend me thy shoes, that I may walk with the lady towards
I:Iarim, for mine are worn."

The young man approached, kicking off his red leather
sUppers as he came.

" We belong to God ! " said he. " I saw Shibly but a year
\go." And the news had to be repeated to him in detail

We journeyed on along the stony mountain tops, brushing
through purple daphne that grew in wonderful profusion, and
talking as we went as though we had been old friends long
parted. When we came to the lip of the Jebel el 'Ala we saw
H&rim below us, and I insisted that my companion should

310 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

spare himself the labour of walking further. He agreed, with
great reluctance, to turn back, and stood pouring out blessings
on me for full five minutes before he would bid me farewell,
and then returned to us again that he might be sure we had
understood the way.

And next time you come into the Jebd el 'Ala," said he,

you must bring your camp to Kalb Lozeh and stay at least a
month, and we will give you all you need and show you all the
ruins. And now may you go in peace and safety, please God ;
and in peace and in health return next year.**

" May God prolong yoiu: life," said I, " and give you peace ! *'

So we separated, and my heart was warm with an affection
for his people which it is never difficult to rekmdle. Cruel in
battle they may be — the evidence against them is overwhelm-
ing; some have pronounced them treacherous, others have
found them grasping ; but when I meet a Druze I do not hesi-
tate to greet a friend, nor shall I until my confidence has been
proved to have been misplaced.

Harim castle stands on a mound at the entrance of one of
the few gorges that give access to the Jebel d *Ala. Beyond
it lies the great Orontes plain that was a granary in old days
to the dty of Antioch. Much of the northern part of the plain was
under water, the swampy lake which the Syrians call El Bahra
having been extended by the recent rains to its fullest limit.
We turned south from Harim and rode along the foot of the
slopes of the Jebel el 'Ala to Salkin, a memorable ride by reason
of the exceeding beauty of the land through which we passed.
I have seen no such abundant fertility in all Syria. Groves of
olive and almond shared the fat ground with barley and oats ;
tangled thickets of gorse and broom, daphne and blackberry,
edged the road, and every sunny spot was blue with iris stylosa.
Saikin itself lay in a wooded valley amid countless numbers of
olive-trees that stretched almost to the Orontes, several miles
av^ay. We dismounted before we reached the town in an open
spot between olive-gardens. It was five o'clock, but Paris
had not arrived, and we disposed ourselves comfortably imder
the trees to wait for him. Our advent caused some exdte-
ment among the people who weie sitting on the grass enjoying
the evening calm ; before long one, who was evidently a person

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 311

of consideration, strolled up to us, accompanied by a servant,
and invited me to come and rest in his house. He was a portly
man, though he had barely touched middle age, and his coun-
tenance was pleasant ; I accepted his invitation, thinking I
might as well see what Salkin had to offer. Opportunities
of enlarging the circle of your acquaintance should always be
grasped, especially in foreign parts.

I soon found that I had fallen into the hands of the wealthiest
inhabitant of the town. Muhammad 'Ali Agha is son to Rus-
tum Agha, who is by birth a Circassian and was servant in the
great Circassian family of Kakhya Zadeh of Hamadan — that
is their Arabic name, the Persians call them Kat Khuda Zadeh.
The Kakhya Zadehs migrated to Aleppo two centuries back ;
by such transactions as are familiar to Circassians, they
grew exceedingly rich and are now one of the most powerful
firailies in Aleppo. Their servants shared in their prosperity,
and Rustum Agha, being a careful man, laid by enough money
to buy land at Salkin near his master's large estate in the
Orontes valley. Fortune favoured him so well that the hand
of a daughter of the Kakhya house was accorded to his son.
I did not leam all these details at once, and was astonished while
I sat in Muhammad 'Ali*s harem to observe the deference with

^12 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

which he treated his wife, wondering why the sharp-featured,
bright-eyed little lady who had borne him no sons should be
addressed by her husband with such respect, for I did not then
know that she was sister to Reshid Agha Kakhya Zadeh. Mu-
hammad *Ali's only child, a girl of six years old, what though
she were of so useless a sex, was evidently the apple of her father's
eye. He talked to me long of her education and prospects, while
I ate the superlatively good olives and cherry jam that his
maid servants set before me. The Khanum was so gracious
as to prepare the coffee with her own hands, and to express
admiration of the battered felt hat that lay, partly concealed
by its purple and silver kerchief, on the divan beside me.

" Oh, the beautiful European hat ! " said she. "Why do
you wear a mendil over it when it is so pretty ? *'

And with that she stripped it of the silk scarf and camel's
hair rope, and placing it in all its naked disreputableness on her
daughter's black curls, she declared that it was the most
becoming head-dress in the world.

At six o'clock news was brought. that my baggage animals
had arrived, but before I could be allowed to return to my tents
Rustum Agha had to be visited. He was lying on a couch
heaped with wadded silken coverlets in an upper chamber
overlooking the beautiful rushing stream and the two great
cypresses that add much to the picturesqueness of Salkin.
ITiese trees stand like tall black sentinels before the gate of
the house, which is the first and the largest in the winding
village street. Rustum Agha was very old and very sick.
His face lay like the face of a corpse upon the pale primrose
silk of the bedclothes. He seemed to be gratified by my visit,
though when he opened his lips to greet me he was seized with
such an intolerable fit of coughing that his soul was almost
shaken out of his body. As soon as he recovered he asked for
the latest tidings of Russia and Japan, and I marvelled that
he, who seemed so near his end, had the patience to ask any-
thing of us, but whether we could see the lagging gamerer with
the scythe hobbling up between the cypresses at the door.

As I sat down to dinner in my tent two of Muhammad 'All's
servants staggered into camp bearing a large jar of olives grown
in the gardens of Salkin and preserved in their own oil. They

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 313

brought too a request from their master that he might come
and spend an hour with me, and I sent back a message praying
that he would honour me. He appeared later, with one or
two people in attendance to carry his hubble-bubble, and
settled himself for a comfortable chat to the gurgling accom-
paniment of the water pipe, a soothing and an amicable soimd
conducive to conversation. He told me that Salkin was one of
the many Seleucias, and that it had been founded by Seleucus I.

himself as a summer resort for the iilhabitants of Antioch.
The spot on which I was camped, said he, and the graveyard
beyond it, formed the site of the Seleucid town, " and when-
ever we dig a grave we turn up carved stones and sometimes
writing." It seems not unnatural that the fertile foothills
should have been selected by the people of Antioch for their
country houses, but I have no further evidence to support the
statement. He said also that his brother-in-law, Reshid Agha,
was staying with him, and he expressed a hope that I would
call on him before I left next day.

If Reshid Agha Kakhya Zadeh is th( chief magnate of the
district he is also the chief villain. I found him sitting in
the early morning under the cypresses by the foaming stream,
and a more evil face in a sweeter setting and lighted by a fairer
sun it would have been hard to picture. He was a tall man with
an overbearing manner ; his narrow forehead sheltered a world of

314 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

vicious thoughts, his eyes squinted horribly, his thick sensuous
Ups spluttered as they enunciated the vain boastings and the
harsh commands that formed the staple of his conversation.
He was wrapped in a pale silk robe, and he smoked a hubble-
bubble with a jewelled mouthpiece. By his side lay a bunch
of Spring flowers, which he lifted and smelt at as he talked,
finally offering the best of them to me. It is one of the privi-
leges of the irresponsible traveller that he is not called upon to
eschew the company of rogues, and when I found that my friend
Muhammad 'Ali was about to accompany Reshid Agha to
the latter's house at Alani and that this lay upon my path, I
agreed to their suggestion that we should start together. The
animals were brought out, we mounted under the cypresses
and trotted off through olive-groves towards the Orontes
valley. Reshid Agha rode a splendid Arab mare ; her black
livery shone with the grooming she had received, she was lightly
bitted, her headstall was a silver chain, her bridle was studded
with silver ornaments, her every movement was a pleasure
to behold. Her master appealed repeatedly to Muhammad
'Ali, who jogged along by his side on a fine mule, for admiration
of his mount, and when the latter had replied obsequiously
with the required praise, his words were taken up and rein-
forced by an old fat man who rode with us upon a lean pony.
He was jester and flatterer in ordinary to the Kakhya Zadeh,
and, if his coimtenance spoke truly, panderer to his employer's
vices and conniver at his crimes — among such strange company
I had fallen that April morning. Hajj Najib trotted along
contentedly enough behind us; but Mikhail, whose sense of
the proprieties was strong, could barely conceal his disapproval,
and answered in monosyllables when the jester or Reshid Agha
addressed him, though he unbent to Muhammad 'Ali, whom he
judged (and rightly) to be of another clay. We rode for an
hour over soft springy ground, Reshid pointing out the beauties
of his property as we went.

*' All these olive-gardens are mme," said he, " by God and the
Prophet of God ! there are no such olives in the land. Every
year I come out from Aleppo and see to the ohve harvest witb
my own eyes lest the loiaves who work for me should cheat me,
God curse them ! And therefore I have built myself a house

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 315

at Alani— God knows a man shoiild make himself comfortable
and live decently. But you shall see it, for you must eat with
me ; my table is spread for all comers. And around the house
I have planted fields of mulberry-trees ; ten thousand stripling
trees I have set in the last five years. I shall raise silkworks.

please God ! in great number. Oh Yusef ! show her the boxes
of eggs that came from the land of France."

The jester drew out of his breast a little cardboard box
marked with the brand of a French firm ; but before I could
express my respect for the Agha's industry his attention had
been distracted by some peasants who were pruning the olives
not to his liking, and he spurred his mare up to the trees and
poured out volleys of oaths and execrations upon the unfor-
tunate men, after which he returned to my side and resumed the
tale of his own prowess.

The house was large and new, and furnished throughout with
plush and gilt-framed mirrors. Nothing would satisfy the
Agha but that I should see and admire every comer, and the
jpster gave me the lead in praise and congratulation. From him
I gathered that I was chieJly called upon to exalt the merits oi

3i6 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

the iron stoves that were prominent in each of the rooms — ^no
doubt they added to the comfort if not to the picturesqueness
of the establishment. This over we sat down on a divan to
wait till lunch was ready. The Agha employed the time in
relating to me with an over-emphasised indignation his
struggles against the corrupt and oppressive government under
which he lived, but he omitted to mention that what he suffered
at the hands of those above him he passed on with interest to
those below.

" By God ! " he spluttered, " you have seen how I labour
among my olive-trees, how I plant mulberries and send for the
silkworm eggs from afar, that I may make a new trade at Alani.
Is the VSli grateful ? No, by the Prophet ! He sends his
men and they say : ' Stop ! till we see how much more we
can tax you ! ' And when I would have set up a mill by the
river for the grinding of my com, they said : * Stop ! it is not
lawful.' Then they sent for me in the middle of the harvest,
and I rode hastily to Aleppo, and day by day and week by week
they kept me waiting, and forbade me to leave the dty. And
by God ! " shouted the Agha, thumping on a little inlaid table
with his fist, ** I baffled them ! I went to the Kadi, and said :
* From whom is the order ? ' He said : * From the Vali.'
Then I went to the Vali and said : * From whom is the order ? '
And he answered : * I know not ; perchance from the KSdi.'
And I bade them put it in writing, but they dared not, and so
they let me go."

In the middle of these tales three visitors were announced.
They took a deferential seat on the opposite divan, and ex-
pended themselves in salutations and compliments. The Agha
received them as an emperor might receive his subjects, and
one of them presently seized the opportunity of saying to me in
a stage whisper audible to all :

" You have seen what manner of man is the Agha ? He
is like a king in this country." Whereat the Agha grew yet
more regally gracious.

We sat down at last to a board loaded with every variety
of Syrian delicacy, and few cuisines can beat the Syrian at
its best. The Agha talked and ate with equal eagerness, and
pressed one dish after another upon his guests. When tlie

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 317

feast was in full swing a servant came to him and said that
there was a certain fellah who wished to speak with him.

" Let him come ! " said the Agha indifferently A ragged
peasant figure appeared in the doorway and gazed with eyes
half sullen, half frightened at the company, and the profusion
of delicate meats.

" Peace be upon you, oh Agha ! " he began.

But as soon as he saw the suppliant the Agha started to
his feet in a very fury of passion. His face became purple,
his squinting eyes started from his head, and he thumped
the table with his clenched fist while he cried :

" Begone ! and may God curse you and your offspring,
and destroy your father's house ! Begone, I tell you, and
bring the money, or I will send you to prison with your wife
and your family, and you shall starve there till you die."

" Oh Agha ! " said the man, with a certain dignity that
faced the other's rage, " a little time. Grant me a little time."

** Not a day ! not an hour ! " yelled the Agha. " Away !
go ! and to-night you shall bring me the money."

The peasant vanished from the doorway without another
word, the Agha sat down, and continued his interrupted
conversation and his interrupted meal ; the other guests
ate on as if nothing had happened, but I felt a Httle ashamed
of my place at Reshid's right hand, and I was not sorry to
bid him farewell.

The Agha sent us down to the Orontes and caused us to be
conveyed across the stream in his own ferry-boat. When we
reached the other side Mikh§lil ostentatiously took a crust
from his pocket and began to eat it.

Have you not eaten at Alani ? " said I.

I do not eat with such as he," replied Mikhail stiffly.

At this Najib, whom no such scruple had withheld from
enjoying the unwonted luxury of an ample meal, nodded his
head and said :

" The Agha is an evil man, may God reward him according
to his deeds ! He squeezes their last metalik from the poor,
he seizes their land, and turns them out of their houses to
starve."

" And worse than that/' said Mikhail darkly.

3i8 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

" By God ! " said Najib. " Every man who has a fair wife
or a fair daughter stands in fear of him, for he will never rest
until the woman is in his hands. By God and Muhammad the
Prophet of God 1 many a man has he killed that he might take
his wife into his own harem, and no one is hated more than he."

" Cannot the law prevent him ? " said I.

" Who shall prevent him ? " said NajIb. " He is rich —
may God destroy his dwelling ! "

" Oh Mikhail ! " said I as we pidced our way across the muddy
helds. " I have travelled much in your country and I have
seen and known many people, and seldom have I met a pool
man whom I would not choose for a friend nor a rich man whom
I would not shun. Now how is this ? Does wealth change
the very heart in Syria ? For, look you, in ray country not all
the powerful are virtuous, but neither are they all rogues. And
you and the Druze of Kalb Lozeh and Musa the Kurd, would
you too, if you had meajis, become like Reshtd Agha ? "

" Oh lady," said Mikhail, " the heart is the same, but in

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 319

your country the government is just and strong and every
one of the English must obey it, even the rich ; whereas with us
there is no justice, but the big man eats the little, and the
little man eats the less, and the government eats all alike.
And we all suffer after our kind and cry out to God to help us
since we cannot help ourselves. But at least I did not eat the

bread of Reshid Agha," concluded Mikhail rather senten-
tiously ; and at this Najib and I hung our heads.
'Then followed five hours of the worst travelling. It may
have been a judgment upon Najib and me for sitting at the
table of the wicked, but, like most of the judgments of Provi-
dence, it fell impartially on the just and the unjust, for Mikhail
endured as much as we. All that we had suffered the day
before from the rocks we now suffered at the opposite end of
the scale from the mud. The torture was a thousand times
more acute. For five hours we crossed hills of earth on which
there was never a stone, but the sticky slime of the slopes alter-
nated with deep sloughs, where our horses sank up to their

320 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

girths, and when at last we emerged from this morass into the
Orontes valley man and beast were exhausted. The rising
ground, which we had left, now rose into rocky ridges and peaks,
the broad valley lay on our right hand, half full of flood water,
and beyond it stood a splendid range of mountains. It was
not long before we cai^ht sight of the Byzantine towers

and walls crowning the ridges to the left, and between hedges
of flowering bay we stumbled along the broken pavement
of the Roman road that led to Antioch. The road was
furthei occupied by a tributaiy of the Orontes, which flowed
merrily over the pavement. It was with some excitement
that I gazed on the city of Antioch, which was for so many
centuries a cradle of the arts and the seat of one of the
most gorgeous civilisations that the world has known. Modem
Antioch is like the pantaloon whose clothes are far too wide for
his lean shanks ; the castle walls go climbing over rock and
hill, enclosing an area from which the town has shrunk away.
But it is still one of the loveliest of places, with its great ragged
hill behind it, crowned with walls, and its clustered red roofs
stretching down to the wide and fertile valley of the Orontes.
Earthquakes and the changing floods of the stream have over-

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 321

turned and covered with silt the palaces of the Greek and of
the Roman city, yet as I stood at sunset on the sloping sward
of the Nosairiyyeh graveyard below Mount Silpius, where my
camp was pitched, and saw the red roofs under a crescent
moon, I recognised that beauty is the inalienable heritage
of Antioch.

CHAPTER XIV

A FURTHER acquaintance with Antioch did not destroy the

impressions of the first evening. The more I wandered tfaroxigh

the narrow paved streets the more delightful did they appeax.

Except the main thoroughfare, which is the bazaar, they wiere

almost empty ; my footsteps on the cobble-stones broke throngfa

years of silence. The shallow gables covered with red tiles

gave a charming and very distinctive note to the whole city,

and shuttered balconies jutted out from house to house. Of the

past there is scarcely a vestige. Two fine sarcophagi, adorned

with putti and garlands and with the familiar and, I fancy,

typically Asiatic motive of lions devouring bulls, stand in the

5^raya, and one similar to these, but less elaborate, by the

edge of the Daphne road. I saw, too, a fragment of a classical

entablature in the courtyard of a Turkish house, and a scrap of

wall in the main street that may certainly be dated earlier than

the Mohammadan invasion — ^its courses of alternate brick and

stone resembled the work on the Acropohs. For the rest the

Antir)rh of Seleucus Nicator is a city of the imagination only.

The island on which it was built has disappeared owing to the

changing of the river bed, but tradition places it above tbe

mcxlern town. The banks of the Orontes must have been

Jined with splendid villas ; I was told that the foundations of

them were brought to light whenever a man dug deep enough

through the silt, and that small objects of value, such as coins

and bronzes, were often unearthed. Many such were brought

to me for sale, but I judged them to be forgeries of an imskiUul

kind, and I ^as confirmed in my opinion by a Turkish pasha

Rifa't Agha, who has occupied his leisure in making a collection

of antiquities. He possesses a fine series of Seleucid coins f li*.

earlier nearly as good as the best Sidhan, the later n^rl^

as Dae as the worst Byzantine, and a few bronze lamps one f

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 323

which, in the shape of a curly-haired Eros head, is a beautiful
example of Roman work. The Agha presented me with a

TUE CORN MARKET,

small head, which I take to have been a copy of the head of
Antioch with the high crown, and though it was but roughly
worked, it possessed some distinction borrowed from a great
original-

324 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

Forty years ago the walls and towers of the Acropolis were
still almost perfect ; they are now almost destroyed. The
inhabitants of Antioch declare that the city is rocked to its
foundations every half-century, and they are in instant expec-
tation of another upheaval, the last having occurred in 1862 ;
but it is prosperity not earthquake that has wrought the
havoc in the fortress. The town is admirably situated in its
rich valley, and connected with the port of Alexandretta by a
fairly good road ; it might easily become a great commercial
centre, and even under Turkish rule it has grown considerably
in the past fifty years, and grown at the expense of the Acro-
polis. To spare himself the trouble of quarrying, the Oriental
will be deterred by no difficulty, and in spite of the labour of
transporting the dressed stones of the fortress to the foot of the
exceedingly steep hill on which it stands, all the modern houses
have been built out of materials taken from it. The work
of destruction continues ; the stone facing is quickly disappear-
ing from the walls, leaving only a core of a rubble and mortar
which succumbs in a short time to the aQtion of the weather. I
made the whole circuit of the fortress one morning, and it took
me three hours. To the west of the summit of Mount Silpius a
rocky cleft seamed the hillside. It was full of rock-cut tombs,
and just above my camp an ancient aqueduct spanned it. On the
left hand of the cleft the line of wall dropped by precipitous rocks
to the valley. Where large fragments remained it was evident
that the stone facing had alternated with bands of brick, and that
sometimes the stone itself had been varied by courses of smaller
and larger blocks. The fortifications embraced a wide area,
the upper part leading by gentle slopes, covered with brush-
wood and ruined foundations, to the top of the hill. In the west
wall there was a narrow massive stone door, with a lintel of
jointed blocks and a relieving arch above it. The south wall
was broken by towers ; the main citadel was at the south-
east comer. From here the walls dropped down again steeply
to the city and passed some distance to the east of it. They
can be traced, I believe, to the Orontes. I did not follow their
course, but climbed down from the citadel by a stony path into a
deep gorge that cuts through the eastern end of the hill. The
entrance to this gorge is guarded by a strong wall of brick and

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 325

stone, which is called the Gate of Iron, and beyond it the forti-
fications climb the opposite side of the ravine and are con-
tinued along the hill top. I do not know how far they extend ;
the ground was so rough and so much overgrown with bushes
that I lost heart and turned back. There was a profusion of
flowers among the rocks, marigold, asphodel, cyclamen and
iris,

Bevond the gorge of the Iron Gate, on the liill-side facing

the Orontes, there is a cave which tradition calls the cave of
St. Peter. The Greek communion has erected a little chapel at
its mouth. Yet further along the hill is a still more curious
relic of ancient Antioch, the head of a Sphinx carved in relief
upon a rock some 20 ft. high. Folded about her brow she wears
a drapery that falls on either side of her face and ends where
the throat touches the bare breast. Her featureless counte-
nance is turned slightly up the valley, as though she watched for
one that shall yet come out of the East. If she could speak she
might tell us of great kings and gorgeous pageants, of battle and
of siege, for she has seen them all from her rock on the hill side.
She still remembers that the Greeks she knew marched up from
Babylonia, and since even the Romans did not teach her that
the living world lies westward, I could not hope to enUgh'.en

326 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

her, and so left her watching for some new thing out of the

East.

There was another pilgrimage to be made from Antioch : it
was to Daphne, the famous shrine that marked the spot where
the nymph baffled the desire of the god, the House of the Waters
it is called in Arabic.
It lies to the west of
the town, about an
hour's ride along the
foot of the hills, and
in the Spring a more
enchanting ride could
not be found. The
path led throligh an
exquisite boscage oi
budding green, set
thicldywith flowering
hawthorn and with
the strange purple of
the Judas tree ; then
it crossed a low spur
and descended into a
steep valley through
which a stream
tumbled towards the
Orontes.

No trace remains
of the temples that
adorned this fairest
of all sanctuaries. Earthquakes and the mountain torrents hive
swept them down the ravine. But the beauty of the site has not
duninished since the days when the citizens of the most luxu-
rious capital m the East dallied there with the girls who served
the god. The torrent does not burst noisily from the mountain
side ; it is born in a deep still pool that lies, swathed in a robe
of maidenhair fern, in thickets " annihilating all that's made
to a green thought in a green shade." From the pool issues a
translucent river, unbroken of surface, narrow and profound ;
it runs into swirls and eddies and then into foaming cataracts

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 327

and waterfalls that toss their white spray into the branches of
mulberry and plane. Under the trees stand eleven water-mills ;
the ragged millers are the only inhabitants of Apollo's shrine.
They brought us walnuts to eat by the edge of the stream, and
small antique gems that had dropped from the ornaments of
those who sought pleasures less innocent perhaps than ours by
the banks of that same torrent.

It is impossible to travel in North Syria without acquiring a

keen interest in the Seleucid kings, backed by a profound
respect for their achievements in politics and in the arts;
I was determined therefore to visit before I pushed north the
site of Seleucia Pieria, the port of Antioch and the burial-place
of Seleucus Nicator. Inland capital and seaport sprang into
being at the same moment, and were both part of one great
conception that turned the lower reaches of the Orontes into a
rich and populous market — in those days kings could create
wor'-d-famous cities with a wave of the sceptre, and the Seleucids
were not backward in following the example Alexander had set
them. Like Apamea, Seleucia has shrunk to the size of a
hamlet, or perhaps it would be truer to say that it has split up
into several hamlets covered by the name of Sweidiyyeh. (The

328 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

nomenclature is confusing, as each group of farms or huts has a
separate title.) The spacing of the population at the mouth of
the Orontes is due to the occupation in which the inhabitants
of the villages are engaged. They are raisers of silkworms, an
industry that requires during about a month in the Spring
such continuous attention that every man must live in the
centre of his mulberry-groves, and is consequently separated by
the extent of them from his neighbours. After three hours' ride
through a delicious country of myrtle thickets and mulberry
gardens we reached Sweidiyyeh, a military post and the most
important of the scattered villages. Here for the first and only
time on my journey I was stopped by an officer, the worse for
'arak, who demanded my passport. Now passport I had none ;
I had lost it in the Jebel Zawiyyeh when I lost my coat, and it
is a proof of how Uttle bound by red tape the Turkish official
can show himself to be that I travelled half the length of the Otto-
man Empire without a paper to my name. On this occasion the
zaptieh who was with me demonstrated with some heat that
he would not have been permitted to accompany me if I had
not been a respectable and accredited person, and after a short
wrangle we were allowed to pursue our way. The reason of
this meticulous exactitude was soon made clear : the villages
on the coast contain large colonies of Armenians ; they are
surrounded by military stations, to prevent the inhabitants from
escaping either inland to other parts of the empire or by sea
to Cyprus, and the comings and goings of strangers are care-
fully watched. One of the objects that the traveller should ever
set before himself is to avoid being drawn into the meshes of the
Armenian question. It was the tacit conviction of the learned
during the Middle Ages that no such thing as an insoluble
question existed. There might be matters that presented
serious difficulties, but if you could lay them before the right
man — ^some Arab in Spain, for instance, omniscient by reason
of studies into the details of which it was better not to inquire
— ^he would give you a conclusive answer. The real trouble
was only to find your man. We, however, have fallen from
that faith. We have proved by experience that there are, alas !
many problems insoluble to the human intelligence, and of that
number the Turkish empire owns a considerable proportion.

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 329

The Armenian question is one of them, and the Macedonian
question is another. In those directions madness lies.

It was with the determination not to waver in a decision that
had contributed, largely, I make no doubt, to happy and pros-
perous joumeyings, that I rode down to ChauKk, the port of
ancient Seleucia. I found my resolve the less diflicult to observe
because the Armenians talked little but Armenian and Turkish,
at any rate the few words of Arabic that some of them pos-
sessed were not sufficient to enable them to enter into a de-
tailed account of their wrongs. He who served me that after-
noon as a guide was a man of so cheerful a disposition that he
would certainly have selected by preference a different topic.
His name was Ibrahim, he was bright-eyed and intelligent, and
his cheerfulness was deserving of praise, since his yearly income
amounted to no more than 400 piastres, xmder £2 of English
money. From this he proposed to save enough to bribe the
Turkish officials at the port that they might wink at his escape
in an open boat to Cyprus : " for," said he, " there is no industry
here but the silkworms, and they give me work for two months
in the year, and for the other ten I have nothing to do and no
way of earning money." He also informed me that the
Nosairis who inhabited the adjoining villages were unpleasant
neighbours.

" There is feud between you ? " said I.

" Ey wallah ! " said he with emphatic assent, and related in
illustration the long story of a recent conflict which, as far as
it was comprehensible, seemed to have been due entirely to
the aggressions j)f the Armenians.

" But you began the stealing," said I when he had concluded.

" Yes," said he. " The Nosairis are dogs." And he added
with a smile : " I was imprisoned in Aleppo for two years
afterwards."

" By God ! you deserved it," said I.

" Yes," said he, as cheerfully as ever.

And this, I rejoice to say, was all that Ibrahim contributed
to the store of evidence on the Armenian question.

The Bay of Seleucia is not unUke the Bay of Naples and
scarcely less beautiful. A precipitous ridge of the hills, honey-
combed with rock-hewn tombs and chambers, forms a back-

330 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

ground to the mulberry-gardens, and, sweeping round, encloses
the bay to the north. Below it lie the walls and water-gates
of the port, silted up with earth and separated from the sea by a
sandy beach. The Orontes flows through sand and silt farther
to the south, and the view is closed by a steep range of hills
culminating at the southern point in the lovely peak of Mount
Cassius, which takes the place of Vesuvius in the landscape. I
pitched my camp near the northern barrier in a little cove
divided from the rest of the bay by a low spur which ran out
into a ruin-covered headland that commanded the whole sweep
of the coast, and I pleased myself with the fancy that it was
on this point that the temple and tomb of Seleucus Nicator had
stood, though I do not know whether its exact stuation has ever
been determined. Below it on the beach lay an isolated rock
in which a columned hall had been excavated. This hall was
fragrant of the sea and fresh with the salt winds that blew
through it : a very temple of nymphs and tritons. Ibrahim
took me up and down the face of the precipitous cliffs by
little paths and by an old chariot-road that led to the city
on the summit of the plateau. He said that to walk round the
enclosing weJI of the upper city took six hours, but it was
too hot to put his statement to the test. We cUmbed into an
immense number of the artificial caves, in many of which there
were no loculi. They may have been intended for dwellings
or storehouses rather than for tombs. At this time of the year
they were all occupied by the silkworm breeders, who were now
at their busiest moment, the larvae having just issued from the
egg. The entrance of each cave was blocked by a screen of
green boughs to keep out the sun, and the afternoon light
filtered pleasantly through the budding leaves. At the southern
end of the cliff there was a large necropolis, consisting of small
caves set round with loculi, and of rock-hewn sarcophagi
decorated, when they were decorated at all, with the garland
motive that adorns the sarcophagi at Antioch. The most
important group of tombs was at the northern end of the cliff.
The entrance to it was by a pillared portico that led into a
double cave. The larger chamber contained some thirty to forty
loculi and a couple of canopied tombs, the canopies cut out of
the living rock; the smaller held about half the number of

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 333

loculi, the roof of it was supported by pillars and pilasters, and I
noticed above the tombs a roughly cut design consisting of a
scroll of ivy-shaped and of indented leaves.

The builders of Seleucia seem to have been much pre-occu-
pied with the distribution of the water-supply. Ibrahim showed
me along the face of the cliff a channel some 2 ft. wide and 5 ft.
high, which was cut 3 or 4 ft. behind the surface of the rock,
and carried water from one end of the city to the other. We
traced its course by occasional air-holes or breaches in the
outer welU of rock. The most difficult problem must have
been the management of the torrent that flowed down a gorge
to the north of the town. A great gallery had been hewn
through the spur to the south of my camp to conduct the water
to the sea and prevent it from swamping the houses at the foot
of the cliff. The local name for this gallery is the Gariz. It
began at the mouth of a narrow ravine and was tunnelled
through a mass of rock for several hundred yards, after which it
continued as a deep cutting open to the air till it reached the
end of the spur. At the entrance of the timnel there was an
inscription in clear-cut letters, " Divus Vespasianus " it began,
but the rest was buried in the rocky ground. There were
several others along the further course of the Gariz, all of
them in Latin : I imagine that the work was not Seleucid, but
Roman.

To one more spectacle Ibrahim tempted me. He declared
that if I would follow him through the mulberry-gardens below
the cliff he would show me " a person made of stone." My
curioisty was somewhat jaded by the heat and the long walk,
but I toiled back wearily over stones and other obstacles to find
a god, bearded and robed, sitting under the mulberry trees.
He was not a very magnificent god ; his attitude was stiff, his
robe roughly fashioned, and the top of his head was gone, but
the low sun gilded his marble shoulder and the mulberry boughs
whispered his ancient titles. We sat down beside him, and
Ibrahim remarked :

" There is another buried in this field, a woman, but she
is deep deep under the earth."

" Have you seen her ? " said I.

" Yes," said he. " The owner of the field buried her, for he

334 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

thought she might bring him ill luck. Perhaps if you gave
hira money he might dig her up."

I did not rise to the suggestion ; she was probably better
left to the imagination.

Close to the statue I saw a long moulded cornice which was
apparently in situ, though the wall it crowned was buried
in a corn-field ; so thickly does the earth cover the ruins of Seleu-
. cia. Some day there will be much
to disclose here, but excavation will
be exceedingly costly owing to the
deep silt and to the demands of the
proprietors of mulberry grove and
cornfield. The site of the town is
enormous, and will require years of ■
digging if it is to be properly ex-
plored.

Near my tents a sluggish stream
flowed through clumps of yellow iris
and formed a pool in the sand. It
provided water for our animals and
for the flocks of goats that Armenian
shepherd boys herded morning and
evening along the margin of the sea.
'hulbhrrv-garden The spot was so attractive and the

weather so delightful that I spent an
idle day there, the first really idle day since I had left
Jerusalem, and as I could not hope to examine Seleucia
exhaustively, I resolved to see no more of it than was visible
from my tent door. This excellent decision gave me twenty-
tour hours, to which I look back with the keenest satisfaction,
though there is nothing to be recorded of them except that I
was not to escape so lightly from Armenian difficulties as I
had hoped. . I received in the morning a long visit from a woman
who had walked down from Kabuseh, a village at the top of
the gorge above the Gariz. She spoke English, a tongue she
had acquired at the missionary schools of 'Aintab, her home
in the Kurdish mountains. Her name was Kymet. She had
left 'Aintab upon her marriage, a step she had never ceased to
regret, for though her husband was a good man and an honest,

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 335

he was so poor that she did not see how she was to bring up her
two children. Besides, said she, the people round Kabuseh,
Nosairis and Armenians alike, were all robbers, and she begged
me to help her to escape to Cyprus. She told me a curious
piece of family history, which showed how painful the position
of the sect must be in the heart of a Mohammadan country, if
it cannot be cited as an instance of official oppression. Her
father had turned Muslim when she was a child, chiefly be-
cause he wished to take a second wife. Kymet's mother had
left him and supported her children as best she might, rather
than submit to the indignity that he had thrust upon her, and
the bitter quarrel had darkened, said Kymet, all her own youth.
She sent her husband down next morning with a hen and a
copy of verses written by herself in English. I paid for the
hen, but the verses were beyond price. They ran thus :

Welcome, welcome, my dearest dear, we are happy by your coming I

For your coming welcome I Your arrival welcome !
Let us sing joyfully, jo3rfully,
Joyfully, my boys, jojrfullyl
The sun shines now with moon clearly, sweet light so bright, my
dear boys ,
For your reaching welcome I By her smiling welcome I
The trees send us, my dear boys, with happiness the birds rejoice;
Its nice smelling welcome 1 In their singing welcome 1

I remain.

Yours truly,

George Abraham.

I hasten to add, lest the poem should be considered com-
promising, that its author was not George Abraham, who as
I found in the negotiations over the hen had no word of English ;
Kymet had merely used her husband's name as forming a more
impressive signature than her own. Moreover the boys she
alludes to were a rhetorical figure. I can offer no suggestion as to
what it was that the trees sent us ; the text appears to be corrupt
at this point. Perhaps " us " should be taken as the accusative.

It was with real regret that I left Seleucia. Before dawn,
when I went down to the sea to bathe, deUcate bands of cloud
were lying along the face of the hills, and as I swam out into
the warm still water the first ray of the sun stnick the snowy
peak of Mount Cassius that closed so enchantingly the curve of

336 THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

the bay. We journeyed back to Antioch as we had come, and
pitched tents outside the city by the high road. Two days
later we set off at 6.30 for a long ride into Alexandretta. The
road was abominable for the first few miles, broken by deep
gulfs of mud, with here and there a scrap of pavement that
afforded little better going than the mud itself. After three
hours we reached the village of Karamurt, and three quarters
of an hour further we left the road and struck straight up the
hills by a ruined khan that showed traces of fine Arab work.
The path led up and down steep banks of earth between thickets
of flowering shrubs, gorse and Judas trees, and an undergrowth
of cistus. We saw to the left the picturesque castle of Baghras,
the ancient Pagrae.. crowning a pointed hill : I do not believe
that the complex of mountains north of Antioch has ever been
explored systematically, and it may yet yield fragments of
Seleucid or Roman fortifications that guarded the approach
to the city. Presently we hit upon the old paved road that
follows a steeper course than the present carriage road ; it led
us at one o'clock (we had stopped for three quarters of an hour
to lunch under the shady bank of a stream) to the summit of
the Pass of Bailan, where we joined the main road from Aleppo
to Alexandretta. There was no trace of fortification, as far as
I observed, at the Syrian Gates where Alexander turned and
marched back to the Plain of Issus to meet Darius, but the
pass is very narrow and must have been easy to defend against
northern invaders. It is the only pass practicable for an army
through the rugged Mount Amanus. The village of Bailan
lay an hour further in a beautiful situation on the northern
side of the mountains looking over the Bay of Alexandretta
to the bold Cilician coast and the white chain of Taurus. From
Bailan it is about four hours' ride to Alexandretta.

As we jogged down towards the shining sea by green and
flowery slopes that were the last of Syria, MikhaQ and I fell
into conversation. We reviewed, as fellow travellers will, the
incidents of the way, and remembered the adventures that had
befallen us by flood and field, and at the end I said :

" Oh Mikhail, this is a pleasant world, though some have
spoken ill of it, and for the most part the children of Adam
are good not evil."

LOWER COURSE OF THE GARlZ

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 339

" It is as God wills," said Mikhail.

" Without doubt," said I. " But consider, now, those whom
we have met upon our journey, and think how all were glad to
help US, and how well they used us. At the outset there was
Najib F5ris, who started us upon our way, and Namriid and
G:'.hlan— "

'■ USsha'llah I " interrupted Mikhail. " Gablan was an

SARCOPHAGUS IN THE SEKA

excellent man. Never have I seen an Arab so little grasping,
for he would scarcely eat of the food that I prepared for him."

" And Sheikh Muhammad en Nassar," I pursued, " and his
nephew Faiz, and the KSimakam of Kal'at el Husn, who lodged
us for two nights and fed us all, and the Kaimakara of Dre-
kish, who made a great reception for us, and the zaptieh Mah-

mud " (Mikhail gave a grunt here, for he had been at

daggers drawn with Mahmiid.) "And Sheikh Yunis," I went
on hastily, " and Musa the Kurd, who was the best of all."

" He was an honest man," observed Mikhail, " and served
your Excellency well." ^

" And even Reshid Agha," I continued, " who was a rogue,
treated us with hospitality."

34^

THE DESERT AND THE SOWN

" Listen, oh lady," said Mikhail, " and I will make it clear
to you. Men are short of vision, and they see but that for
which they look. Some look for evil and they find evil ; some
look for good and it is good that they find, and moreover some
are fortunate and these find always what they want. Praise
be to God ! to that number you belong. And, please God ! you
shall journey in peace and return in safety to your own land,
and there you shall meet his Excellency your father, and your
mother and all your brothers and sisters in health and in happi-
ness, and all your relations and friends," added Mikhail com-
prehensively, " and again many times shall you travel in
Syria with peace and safety and prosperity, please God ! "

'' Please God ! " said I.

HuwW-

■ o

* INDEX

Abadeh tribe, the, 23
Abana River, the, 152
'Abdul 'Aziz ibn er Rashld. 146

Hamed Pasha Druby, 189,
194

Hamid Rafi 'a Zftdeh, 201-

219. 339
Kadir, the great Algerian,

145-46
Kfldir el Azam, 224-27, 237
Mejid, Kurdish zaptieh, 210-

II
Wahhftb Beg, 182
Abdullah Pasha, the Amir, 145-49
'Abd ur RahmSn Pasha, 239
Abraham, George, 335
Abrash River, the, 210
Abu Kbesh, castle of, 218
Zreik, village of, 10 1
'1 Fida, sarcophagus of, 230
Acropolis, Athens, 167 ; Antioch,

322, 324-25
Adana, 271
Aden, 265
* Ad wan tribes, 16
Afrin, valley of the, 288
Agha, Muhammad 'All, 311-14
Reshid, 339

Rifa't, collection of, 322-23, 325
Rustum, 311-12
Ahmed,son of Ghishghftsh, 1 1 1-12, 128
*Ain esh Shems, 7, 217
'Aintab, missionary schools at, 334
Ajlun hills of, 16
'Akabah, Gulf of, 14
Al Herdeh, village of, 233
'Ala, Jebel el, 276, 302, 305, 309, 310
AlSni, 314-16

Aleppo, 66, 222n., 232, 244, 250, 251,
256, 270-72, 311, 314; descrip-
tion, 260-69
Alexander the Great, 242, 336
Alexandretta, 262, 265, 270, 324, 336
Alexandria, 240

'Ali id Diftb ul 'AdwSn, SultSn ibn, 16
Muhammad, Pasha of Aleppo,

148, 268
Pasha, Amir, 145-47, ^49

AUftt, 95

'Alya, Jebel el, 51-52, 64
Amanus,* Mount, 336
Amereh, mound of, 26
American College, Beyrout, 208, 230
Survey, the. 77, 171, 276,
297
'AmmSn, 13, 20, 27, 56, 164
'Anazeh tribe, the, 24, 25,65. 127, 152,

172, 197
Anglo-Japanese alliance, 229
'Antara, poetry of, 59-60
Anti-Libanus, iii, 121, 159, 167
Antioch, 175, 270, 277, 278, 281, 310 ; %

description and relics, 318-27, 336
Apamea, 242, 327
Apostles* Well, the, see 'Ain esh

Shems
Arabic inscriptions, 122, 242
Arabs, 14, 16, 23 at seq., 56-58, 66-
67 ; hospitality, 32-33, 37, 55-57 ;
customs, &c., 36-37, 42, 49, 67 ;
poetry, 60-63 .* inter- tribal rela-
tions, 65-66
'Areh, village of, 81, 85
'Arjftrmeh, the, 14

Armenians, 140 ; the Armenian ques-
tion, 328-29
Asad Beg, 171
Asbft 'i, Mustafa el, 148
'Asl, swamp of the, 242
Assassins, sect of the, 196
At Tabari, history of, 80
Athens, 297 ; the Acropolis, 167
Awftd, the Arab, 121-23, 127
'Awais, Yusef el, 160
Azam Zadeh family at Hamah, 223-

24
Azrak, Kala 'at el, 84

Ba'albek, 159-160; Temple of The
Sun, 164-169 ; Temple of Jupiter,
i73» 177 \ Basilica of Constantine.
183 ; Ras ul 'Ain, 187 ; Christian
church at, 214

Bab el Hawa, the, 297, 301

Babiska, village, 297-98

Babylonia, 241

342

INDEX

Baghdad, 66, iii ; the railway to

261-62
Bap;hrfts, castle of, 336
Bailftn, Pass of, 336
Baitocaice, 214

Bftkirha, ruins of, 278, 298-303
Balad, Sheikh el, 58
Bai&d. village of, 287-89
Barada, the Wadi, 159
Bar&zi family, Hamfth, 224
Barflzi, Mustafa Pasha el, 147, 148,

236
Bftrisha, Jebel, 276. 298. 301. 302
Bashan, 84

Basilica of Constan tine, Ba'albek, 183
BftsufSn. church at, 288, 291
Bathaniyyeh, 131

Bawfibet Ullah, the, Damascus, 133
Bedouins, 10, 23, 56, 122. 197, 256
Bedr, battle of, 62
Behft'is, religion of t;he, 150, 193
Beida, Kal'at el, 34, 123-28

White Land, 108, 121
Belka plain, 19, 23-24 ; tribes of the,

23-26, 56-58
Beni 'Atiyyeh, the, 239. 240

Awajeh tribe, the, 66

Hassan tribe, the, 65, 68, 96

Sakhr, 24, 33, 38, 41, 43

Sha 'al&n. the. 25
Beyrout, 99, 198, 208, 230, 231, 262
Birijik, railway at, 261-62
Birket Umm el *Amud, the, 25-26
Bizzos, Tomb of, 253-54, 277 -^S
Bkei'a, the plain, 198
Black Sea, 8

Stone at Mecca, 96
Blunts, the travellers, 84
Boer War, the, 229
Bologna, 254
Bosrft, 20, 74, 81

el Harlr, 229
BrSk, village of, 132
Briinnow, "Die Provincia Arabia,"

34n., 52W.
BukhftUh, 125
Burj el Kfts, 282

Heida, 293
Burjkeh, village of, 280-81
Busan, the Wadi, 107
Butler, Mr., 75, 244, 276-78, 286

Calcutta, 227
Calycadnus River, the, 241
Cassius, Mount, 330
Cave villages, 1 1 1
Caves, Namrud's, 31-37
Chamberlain, Mr., 105
Chaullk, 329
Circassians, 56, 132, 238-39

Coffee, customs, 19-20

Coins, Roman, 27 ; Seleucid, 322

Constan tine, coins of, 27

Constantinople, 48, 104

Crete, Moslems of, 152

Cromer, Lord, 58, 105, 229

Crown of Thorns, the, 1 1

Crusaders, 205^6

Cufic inscriptions, 80, 122-23

Curzon, Lord, 229

Cyprus, 229, 328, 335

Da' J A tribe, the, 24-27, 40, 51, 9^
Damascus, 77, 99, 128-33, 198, 231
History, 134-58 ; houses of,
136-51, 227 ; the Great
Mosque, 142, 150-51, 153 ;
Friday in, 152
Dftna, 297 ; tomb at, 31, 254, 259,

299
Danftdisheh family, 207
Daphne Road, Antioch, 322 ; shrine,

326
Dar KIta, 286

Dark Tower, Kal'at el Husn, 201
Dead Sea, 10 ; Dead Sea Fruit, 11- 12
Decimus of the Flavian Legion, 214
Dehes, 297, 302
Deir es Sleb, 219
Deiret 'Azzeh, village of, 297
Dera'a, cave village, 1 1 1
Derwish, soldier, 171, 172
Din, Sheikh ed, 58
Drekish, village of, 211-12
Drusura, 95

Druze, the Jebel, 20, 43, 64, 70, 164

Druzes, the, 38, 43. 5 1. 5^. 67, 70

Habits and customs, 79-80, S2,

83, S6, 128 ; the fight against

the Sukhur, 88-106 ; dread

of the Mohammadans, 306-

309
Dussaud, Monsieur, 75, 84, 102, 122--

23. 125. 175

Effendi, Dervish, 227

Yflsef, 85-87, 13s
Effendim, 219-220
Egypt, English rule in, 57-58
E] Jeita, village of, 11 1
£1, the God, 124

Ajlftt, III

Bahra, lake of, 310

B&rah, village of, 245, 247, 24^

Hayyat, mosque of, 230

Khudr, Well of, 94, 96

MughSra, village of, 255

Muwaggar, 52-54, 126
Emesa, Roman city, 181, 186
Epiphaneia, fortress of. 23 1

INDEX

343

Ethreh, 84
Euphrates, the, 268
Euting, M., 84

Fafertin, village of, 274, 282
Fftiz, nephew of Muhammad en
Nassftr, 107, 111-12, 128, 339
el Atrash, Sheikh of Kreyeh, jy^

81
Talal ul, 24, 25
F&ris, muleteer, 270 tt seq,, 302, 310

Habib, 19-20, 22, 339
Fayyftd, Agha of Karyatein, 152
Fedhameh, village of, iii
Fellahin, the, 56 ; social condition,
206-7, •'iH7-i8
Bank, the, 58
Fendi, guide, jy, 78, 88
Fida, Abu '1. 22
France, Baghdad railway scheme, 261

Gablan; the Arab, 39-40, 44, 49, 52,

54. 55. S9-60, 6^. 76, 339
Gariz, the, Seleucia, 331, 333, 334,

337
Gates of God, the, 133

Germany, Baghdad railway scheme,

261
Gethsemane. valley of, 4
Gharz. the Ghadir el, ii6, 121-23

the Wftdi el, 125
Ghassftnid forts, 34, 52. 126
Ghawftmy, the, 41
Ghazu, the sport, 66-67
Ghi&tk, the, 96, 119-28
Ghishghftsh, Sheikh of Umm Huweik,

107, 111-12, 120
GhOr, the, 11, 16-19, 23
Giour Dftgh, the, 288, 301
Greek inscriptions. 122-23, ^A^> 253-

54
Greeks, 140

Habib, muleteer, 3, 16, 74, 112, 124,

168, 172, 270
Hadudmadiid, 293
Haida, Dr., 171
Haifa, 19

HAil, town of, 44, 47, 48, 84
Haji Railway, the, 22. 34

road, the, 239-40
Hamftd, the, iii, 112
HamSh, 168

Roman road from, 218-220;

description, 221-23 ; the

Mosque, 223 ; people, 223-29

Hamdftn, son of Sheikh Understnad-

ing, 120
Hamud, 51

oi Sweida* 82, 94

Hanelos, 125

Hftrim, 306, 309-310; the castle,

310-311
Harith, Ibn el, 62
Harra, the Burnt Land, 108
Harun er Rashid, 212
Haseneh tribe, the, 172, 197
Hftss, Jebel el, 260
Hassan Beg Nft'i, 182-85
Hassaniyyeh tribe, the, 24, 65-70, 88
Haurftn, mountains of, 18, 58, 70, 75.

76
Hayftt, Kalybeh at, 131
Heart of God, 1 16
Hejaz Railway, the, 136
Helbftn, mud village of, 256
Hermon Mountains, 121. 159
Heshbftn, 16

Hind, the land of, 195, 196
Hira, 126
Hit, village of, 131
Hittites, the, 175
Hober, village of, 260
Holy Sepulchre, Church of the, 2
Homs, III, 168, 17s, 176, 193-94
Castle of, 179, 181 ; people of*

180-81, 186-90; houses of,

182-86 ; the Marj ul* Asi, 186 ;

Stony Plain of, 197
Homsi, Nicola, 266
Howeitftt, the, 65, 239, 240
Hurmul, Tower of, 172, 175
Husn es Suleiman, 213-17

Kal'at el, 195, 199, 201-209,

339 ; Greek Monastery • at,

209-210

Ibrahim, the Armenian, 329-30, 333-

34
muleteer, 3

Pasha, 36, 180
Iliftn, Milhfim, 85, Z6, 96-99, loa, 105
Imtain, 70, 82, 92
Iron Gate, Antioch, 325
'Isa, Fellah ul, 51, 55-57, 69-70, 164
Islamism, 227-29

Ismailis, 195 ; religion. 233-35, ^79
'Izzet Pasha, 149, 212-13

[ADA 'Uah, 69, 85
Jaffa 8

fapanese War, 103-4, 156, 160, 183
febel-Halakah, the, 297
[ebeliyyeh Arabs, the, 75, 96
Jericho, the road to, 10, 1 1

Jertln, oasis of, 152-53
ertldi, the brigand, see Muhammad
Pasha, Sheikh of Jerud
Jerusalem, 4, 90, 160, 266
Jisr el Wftd, bndge of, a to

344

JOf, 47. 84

Jordan valley, 10 et ieq,

Judaea, 7-10

Kabul, 227

Kabuseh, village of, 334, 335

Kadesh, 177-79

K&f, 84

Kais, Amr ul, 59, 60, 67

Kalam, Mushkin, 148, 149

Kalb LOzeh, church of, 278, 302-6

KalOteh, 282, 285 ; church of, 286-

87
Kftmu'a Hurmul, 172, 175

Kanawat, 164 ; the basilica, 1 1 1 ;

illustrations, 109, 113, 115

Kantarah, the, 119

K&ramurt, village of, 336

Karyatein, oasis of, 152

Kasr el Ahla, see Kasr el 'Alya

*Alya, 52

Ban»t, 255, 257

Kastal. 34, 126

Katurft, 282

Kb6s, Monsieur, 222-24, 230, 231

Kbeshin, hamlet of, 273

Kefr 'Abid, 260

Anbll, 244, 246

Lftb, 292-95

Nebu, 288
Keifftr, village of, 288
Kerak, 205-6
Khabb&z, Hanna, 194
KhSlid Beg 'Azam, 227
Kharftneh, ruins of, 54
Khayyftm, Omar, 23
Khir&b esh Shems, 282, 283 ; churcli

at, 285-86
Khlrbet H&ss, village of, 244-45
Khittftb, 112, 119, 128
Khudr, prisoner, 196
Khureibet es Suk, temple and mauso

leum, 28-31
Ki&zim Pasha, Vali at Aleppo, 262-66
Kiepert, maps, 168-71, 259, 260, 273
Killani family at Ham&h, 224, 227,

23s
Kill&iiyyeh Tekah, Ham&h. 225,

227
Killiz, 261

Knights Hospitallers, 205-6
Knights Templars, 206, 211
Konia, 171, 270
Kreyeh, 78, 81
Kseir, town of, 172-75
Ksejba, village of, 297
Kubbeh in Mosque at Hamah, 223
Kubbet el Khazneh, the, 141, 147,

148
Kuda'a, tribe of, 139

INDEX

Kuleib, 83

KulthQm, Ibn, song of, 1 39

Kur'ftn, reading of the, 233-34

Kurds, 103, 273-74, 288, 291-96

Kurumfuleh, the, 160-63

Kuruntul, monastery of, 1 1

Kuseir es Sahl, 28

Kutaila, dirge of, 62

Kuwdk River, the, 259

Kweit, 48, 265

Kymet, the Kurdish woma 4-35

Lahiteh, 132

Laodocia ad Orontem, 176

Larissa, town of, 235

Lava, lii, 124, 126

Lebanon, Mount, 163, 164, 176

Lebid, poetry of, 60, 61

Lebweh, ruins at, 171

Lejft road, the, 1 32

Littmann, Dr., 75, yy, I2$n,

Loculi, 329, 330

Lutticke of Damascus, 134

Lyall, Sir Charles, 6sn.

Lysicrates, monument of, 297

Ma' ALULA, monastery of, 209

Ma 'fin, 13, 14, 22, 239

Mabuk, the Arab, 14

M&deba, 16, 22, 24, 26

Mahmud, Hajj, the zaptieh 231-46.
250, 252. 259, 272, 339

Malek ed D&her, Sultan, 206

Manuscripts, illuminated, 148

Mftr EUfts, church of, 182

Mar Saba, monastery of, 1 5

Mar&h, teut marks, 127

Mar j ul * Asi of the Orontes, 1 86

Marlborough Club, the, 196

MzLsyftd, 217-19

Matkh swamp, the, 259, 269

Mazar of Sheikh Ser&k, 123

Mecca, 265

Railway, 13, 171 ; pilgrims, 08;
239 ; the B/ack Stone at. 96 ,
customs, 259

Medft'in Saleh, 239

Medina, 239, 259, 265

Mehes, 297, 302

Meiditn, the, Damascus, 133, 151

Mersina, 262

Mesopotamia, 135, 279

Meskin, 37

Metawlleh sect, the, 160, 168, 171

Mezerib, iii

Mikhail, the cook, 3, 4, 12, 14, 15, 19,
21/ 43. 73. 78. 82, 88, 92. loi, 112.
116, 120, 128, 131, 160, 168, 172,
^75» 217-19, 243-46. 256, 2/0-72,
297. 302, 306, 314, 317-19. 336 40

INDEX

345

MUhftm, Emir Mustafa, 319

Moab, 10, 38

Mohammadan invasion, seventh cen-
tury, 76, 77

Morris, William, 254

Mosaics, 260

Mosul. 293

Mounds, 26-28, 52, 54, 122, 219, 221,
223

Moyemftt, village of, 259

Mshitta, 24, 28, 34, 45, 47, 48, 126

Mu'awiyah, 134

Mudlk, Kal'at el, 231, 238 ; ruins
of, 241-43

Mughftra Merzeh, mud village, 256

Muhammad Effendi, Mufti, 229-30
el Atrash, Sheikh, 69, 79
muleteer, 3, 16, 43. 56, 82, 172
Pasha, Sheikh of Jerud, 152-57
said ul Khftni, K&di, 189-94
Bedouin, 120

the Agha Kh&n, 196-97, 233
uncle of Ibn er Rashld, 14, 48

MujSmir, Sheikh, 51

Musa, Kurdish guide, 279-82, 285,
288, 291-97, 339

Mushennef, Temple at, iii, 117

Musil, 55W.

Mutanabbi, poetry of, 108, 208

Muwaggar, see El Muwaggar

MuwSLi tribe, the, 212, 256

Nabat(ean necropolis, 75 ; inscrip-
tions, 80

Nahar, Sheikh, 37-39, 43

Nahr el 'Awftj, the ,133

Naj6reh, ruins, 54

Najib, Hajj, zaptieh, 272-73, 285, j
297-98, 301, 302, 305, 306, 314.

317-19
Nakshibendi, Sheikh Hassan, 143.

145. 155. 157
NamrQd, Abu, guide, 19, 20, 26-41,

44, 50-52, 5^-57. 339
Napoleon III., 146

Nasib el Atrftsh, Sheikh of Salkhad.

84-85, 93-99
Nassar, Muhammad en, 81, 82, 96,

102-106, 339
NAzim Pasha, Vaii of Syria, 135-39,

141-45, i56-')7. 268
Nebi Mendu, Tell, 175-79
Negroes, 38
Nejd. 14, 47, 84, 139
Nejha, village of, 133
Nosairis, the, 175, 190, 210-13, 233-

35; 329

Og, King, 84, III

Olives, Mount of, 7

Omar, Amir, 149, 159

Omer, iii

Oppenheim, book of, 102, 112, 125

168
Ormftn, village of, 100, 154
Orontes, the, 171, 172, 176, 186, 221,

222, 232, 235, 242, 244, 310, 320.

322, 326-28, 330

Palmyra, 28, iii, 129, 176, 209
Petra, 14
Pieria, 241

Poets of the Ignorance, 60-63. 208
Princeton archaeological expedition,
256

Ra'ib Effendi el Helu, 213
Railways

Hajj, 22, 34 ; Hejftz. 136 ; Mecca
13, 171 ; Rayak-Hamah,
261 ; Baghdad, 261-62 ; the
French, 222
Rftjil, Wftdi, loi
R&meh, iii
Rfts Ba'albek, 171
Ras ul 'Ain, Ba'albek, 187
Rashld, Ibn er, 14, 25, 44-4S
Rayak, 261-62
Redlfs, the, 14, 16
Rhodes, island of, 13671.
Riftd, 14, 47

Riza Beg el' Abid, 211-13, 339
Rolandino, monument in Bologna

254
Roman coms, 27, 219 ; camps. 34 ;
tanks, 35 ; roads, 74, 160, 218,
219, 297 ; forts, 125
ROzah, the, 233
Ruhbeh ^lain, the, 107-12, 123
I Russia, pilgrims, 7-9
: Ruwalla, the, 146, 175
' Ruweihft, the churches at, 253-55,
! 277-78

■

Sachau, M., 250
Sacrifice, Feast of, 68-69
vSafa, the, 96, 105, 107-128
Safaitic inscriptions, 122
Sftfita Castle, 210, 211
St. Peter, Cave of, 325
St. Simon Stylites, church of, se^,

Sim'ftn, Kala 'at
St. Stephen's Gate, 4
Salahiyyeh. 136, 152, 155
Salamis. Gulf of, 167

Nosainyyeh, the Jebel, 176, 195, h Salcah, city of, see Salkhad

198

SAleh, guide, 82-83

346

INDEX

Saleh village, 101-6

Salisbury, Lord, lo*)

Salkhad, 69, 82-100

Salkin, town of, 310-i^

Sallum, Syrian doctor, 230-31

Salt, village of, 16, 18-19, 22-23

Samaria, 266

San Gimignano, 181 ^

Sanctuaries, 95-96

SandQk, the Sfthib es, at Kal'at el

Housn, 206
Sftneh, village of, 107
Sa'oud, Ibn, 14, 44-48
Saphathenos, Zeus, 124
Sarut, the River, 219
Saflnet Nuh (Noah's Ark), 176
Seijar, Kal* at es, 232, 235-38
Seijari, Sheikh Ahmed, 235-38
Selemiyyeh, 195
Seleucia, Bay of, 329-30

Pieria, 327-36

Nicator, temple and tomb of,

241. 313. 322, 327* 330
Sellm Beg, 141, 147, 148, 155-57
Seljuk, 206, 230
Selmftn, 81

Serftk, Sheikh, 123-24
SerSya, the, Homs, 182 ; Antioch,

322
Serge, Archduke, 135
Serjilla, town and ruins, 249, 250,

252
Sermeda, plain of, 297, 302
SAs, Jebel, 126
Shabha, village. 76
Shabhiyyeh, village, y6
Shahbah, 132

Shakka, the Kaisaneh at, 131
Shftm, Widiesh, 11 1
ShammAr, the, 14, 25, 47, 48
Sheikh Barakftt, Jebel, 280, 297
Sheikhty, 11 1
Sheklb el Arslftn, 151-52
Sherarftt tribe, the, 38-41, 96
Shibbekeh, iii
Shibl^r Beg el Atrash, ^7, 309
Shuraik, 125
Sidr bushes, the, 11- 12
Siena Cathedral, 181
Silk industry, 313-17* 330
Silpius, Mount, 321, 324
Sim'to, Kal'at, 274-81 ; the villages,

276-96
Sir, the Wady, 23, 25
Sirhftn, the WSdy, 77, 84
Sitt Ferldeh, the, at Kal'at el Husn,

202, 206
Slime Pits of Genesis, the, 12-13
Smfttiyyeh Arabs, the, 235-38

amy ma, », 99
Soktan, Sheikh, 35
I Sommar, Mon. Luiz de, 164
Spina Christi, legend, 11
Stones, lettered, 122
Suk W&di Barada, 159, 161
Sukhur tribe, the, 14, 25, 31, 65, 88
Sukkar, Yusef Effendi, 19-21
SurkanyS, village, 281-82
Sweida, 82, 85, 92, 164
Sweidiyyeh, the, 327, 328
Sykes, Mr. Mark, 3. 4, 164, 218
Syria, rule in, 140-41 ; condition of

the i)oor, 206-7 I ^^® term, 228
S3niac inscriptions, 292

Tahir, the Amir, 147

ul JezSiri, Sheikh, 147
TSrafa, poetry of, 61
Tarutin, ruins at, 256
Teiftlr family at Hamah, 224
Tell esh Shih, 78
Tell Selma, 259
Tellftl, Abu, of Shahba, 82
Temples

Khureibet es Suk, 2S-31 ; Mush*
ennef, iii, 117; the Sun.
Ba'albek, 164, 169 ; the Leb-
weh, 171 ; Jupiter, Ba'albek,
I73» ^77* 214 ; Husn el Sulei-
mftn, 213-17
Theleleh, 49
Thelelet el Hirsheh, 49
Tigris, 242

Til 21b, mound of, 20, 26, 27, 32
Tombs

Yadudeh, 26-28; Bizzos, 253-
54 ; Seleucia Nicator, 33,:
Tripoli, 195, 197

Gate, the, 195
Tufa, 1 1 5-16, 181
Tuiai, 259

es Safa, the, 121
Turkey, rule of, 14, 16, 22, 35, 44-.>8

85. 86, 139-41, 207, 267-68
Turkmftn Jftmi'a, the, Homs, 182
Turkshftn, the, 81-83, 309

Ullah Beha, Persian prophet, 148
'Umar, Amir, see Omar

Mosque of, Jerusalem, i
Umm ej J em 51, ruins, 70-74

er Resfts, ruins, 54

Rummftn, village, 69-70,
78-79

Ruweik, village, 107, 11 1
Ummayah, house of, 135
Understanding, Sheikh of the Ghi&th,

X20

INDEX

347

Uueif, Kureyt ibn, 99

United States, emigration to the, 17-

18, 163. 211
Urfa, on the Euphrates, 19
Uthail. 62 ,

Vah, lake, 4

Victoria Hotel, Damascus, 133
Vogii6, Monsieur de, 26, 125, 131,
244, 250, 297

Wad el Hassan'yyeh, 18
Waddington, M., 250
Wall of Lamentation, Jerusalem, 17
Wa'r Homs, 197

White Castle of the Knights Tem-
plars, 211

Yadudeh, tombs of, 26
Yahiflfa, the, 160

Yahya Beg el Atiftsh, 81, 309
Yakit 'Ades, 272

Yemen, 126, 229 ; the insurrection
in, 13, 82, 262 ; the soldier in, 240
Yezidis, beliefs of the, 379. 282, 293*

94
YUdiz, 268
Yunis, Sheikh of El 6&rah, 250-53,

255, 339
Yusef, zaptieh guide, 23, 26, 100, 103

Za'bibh, family of the, 207
Zabit, the, at Sahta Castle, 211-13
Z&deh, Reshid Agha Kakhya, 311- 19
Zftwi3ryeh, Jebel, 244 et seq„ 356, 876
Zebdany, 159
Zerka Kiver, the, 51, 56

Kala'at ez, 74
Ziza, Roman tank at, 35
Zuhair, poetry of, 61

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